SOM Foundation Announces Jury for the 2021 Research Prize

Scott Duncan is a Design Partner in SOM’s Chicago office. Throughout his tenure at SOM, Duncan has created groundbreaking designs in cities around the world. As a leader in sustainable design and technological innovation, Duncan’s broad body of work has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects and the Municipal Art Society of New York. He has extensive experience leading design strategies for complex projects, including large-scale mixed-use, transportation, commercial, hospitality, and residential developments.

Iker Gil has been the Executive Director of the SOM Foundation since 2019. He is the founder of MAS Studio, Editor in Chief of the nonprofit MAS Context, and cocurator of Exhibit Columbus 2020–2021. Gil has edited or coedited several books including Radical Logic: On the Work of Ensamble Studio and Shanghai Transforming. He has curated multiple exhibitions including Nocturnal Landscapes, Poured Architecture: Sergio Prego on Miguel Fisac, and BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, part of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial, and was Associate Curator of the US Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).

Gabriel Kozlowski is a Brazilian architect and curator based in Boston. He is currently Assistant Curator for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2021. Past curated exhibitions include Walls of Air (the Brazilian Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale) and Housing+ (the 3rd Biennial Exhibit of the MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism). Kozlowski’s recent books include: The World as an Architectural Project (MIT Press, 2020); 8 Reactions for Afterwards (RioBooks, 2019); and Walls of Air: Brazilian Pavilion 2018 (Bienal de São Paulo, 2018). At MIT, Kozlowski has held teaching and research positions at the School of Architecture and Planning; the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism; and the SENSEable City Lab. He is currently pursuing his PhD at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and is principal at the architectural firm POLES.studio.

James Leng is a founding partner of Figure, an architectural practice based in San Francisco. Leng is also concurrently a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley’s Department of Architecture. Recently, Leng was an artist-in-residence at MacDowell and was previously the Harry der Boghosian Teaching Fellow at Syracuse University. Leng has received various accolades such as the Graham Foundation Grant, the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise for immigrant contribution to the arts, and the SOM Foundation Research Prize for independent research. Leng has professional experience from numerous international practices including: Michael Maltzan Architecture, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, UNStudio, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Leng holds his master’s degree in architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley.

Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is an architect, urban designer, and Assistant Professor of Urban Design at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Malterre-Barthes’s interests are related to urgent aspects of contemporary urbanization and how struggling communities can gain greater access to resources, the mainstream economy, better governance, and ecological/social justice—what she defines as the strategic practice of urban design. While directing the MAS Urban Design at the Chair of Marc Angélil, Malterre-Barthes earned her doctoral degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich on the political economy of commodities on the built environment. She is the coauthor of prize-winning books Housing Cairo: The Informal Response (2016), Some Haunted Spaces in Singapore (2018), and Migrant Marseille: Architectures of Social Segregation and Urban Inclusivity (2020). Malterre-Barthes is a founding member of the Parity Group and of the Parity Front, activist networks dedicated to improving gender equality and diversity in architecture.

Zoë Ryan is Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. She joined the ICA in November 2020. Prior to this, she was the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her research explores the sociopolitical impact of the arts on society. Recent exhibitions include In a Cloud, in a Wall, in a Chair: Six Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury (2019) and Past Forward: Architecture and Design at the Art Institute (2017–ongoing). In 2015, she cocurated Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye. In 2014, Ryan was the curator of the second Istanbul Design Biennial, The Future Is Not What It Used To Be. Ryan has taught graduate seminars on curatorial studies and design history and theory at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a member of the Design Trust International Advisory Council, Hong Kong and on the Executive Committee of the International Confederation of Architecture Museums.

The jury was chosen based on their expertise related to this year’s topic, “Envisioning Responsible Relationships with Materiality,” which seeks to explore materiality from the micro- to the macroscale, bringing together designers and researchers from multiple disciplines in order to envision sustainable, responsible, and ethical relationships with materials and the communities that they come from.