News

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the creation of the SOM Foundation Robert L. Wesley Award. The new award will support BIPOC undergraduate students enrolled in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, or structural engineering programs across the US. The $10,000 award is an unrestricted scholarship that aims to support the academic development of the student. In addition to the economic support, recipients of the award will be paired with one of the jurors who will act as their mentor for the year. The award honors Robert L. Wesley, the first Black partner at SOM.

SOM Foundation Fellow Seth Denizen, winner of the 2019 Research Prize, will deliver the Kiley Fellow Lecture at Harvard GSD on Monday, September 21 at 12 p.m. EST. During the lecture, titled “Thinking Through Soil: Case Study from the Mezquital Valley,” Denizen will discuss the project supported by the SOM Foundation and developed with Montserrat Bonhevi Rosich and David Moreno Mateos.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 SOM Foundation Research Prize. Two teams—one led by the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and one led by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Architecture—will each receive a grant of $40,000 to conduct original research. The SOM Foundation Research Prize was created in 2018 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research with the goal of addressing critical issues of our time. This year’s topic, “Shrinking our Agricultural Footprint,” seeks to define new spatial conditions that reduce our agricultural footprint and advance approaches to sustainability and resiliency in the short- and long-term future.

On December 3, 2019, the SOM Foundation awarded its annual UK Award to students Sun Yen Yee and Annabelle Tan. Sun Yen Yee, a student at the University of Westminster, London, won for his submission titled “SEED of Havana: Dissolving Condensers.” Annabelle Tan, a student at the University College London Bartlett School of Architecture, won for her entry, “Wetland Frontier.”

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the second annual Research Prize. The awards program, which comprises two $40,000 grants awarded to faculty-led interdisciplinary teams, is designed to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research that addresses the critical issues of our time.

On September 6th, the SOM Foundation is hosting the inaugural International Research and Design Forum in partnership with the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. At the full-day event taking place at the IIT campus, industry leaders will deliver presentations and panel discussions on the groundbreaking ideas and research that continue to elevate design thinking and capabilities.

The SOM Foundation welcomes Iker Gil as its new Executive Director. As an architect, editor, and curator, Gil will help lead the SOM Foundation as it focuses efforts on collaborations between students and faculty through the SOM Foundation Research Prize.

In May, 2019, the SOM Foundation announced the results of the 2019 SOM Foundation China Prize. Three winners—Zhu Ziyuan, Jing Qi, and Shen Jie—will each receive a $5,000 fellowship created to support the students as they embark on travel research outside of China.