SOM Foundation Announces Jury for the 2022 Research Prize

Daniel A. Barber is a professor of Architecture and Environment in the Faculty of Design, Architecture, and Building at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and a research affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. His research and teaching follow two trajectories: an archival exploration of environmental histories of architecture and conceptual frameworks to cultivate designed pathways to a post-hydrocarbon future. His most recent book is Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning (Princeton University Press, 2020). His 2019 essay “After Comfort” (Log 49, 2019) is the basis for an exhibition at the 2023 Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting in Dubai and for an ongoing series of essays and projects on the e-flux architecture online platform. His activities are increasingly focused on amplifying the climate-relevant work of colleagues and practitioners, and on developing concepts and frameworks for architects, policy makers, developers, and others to engage the climate emergency. Barber was recently a senior research fellow at the Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies at Heidelberg University and received a 2022–23 Guggenheim Fellowship. He is cofounder of Current: Collective for Architecture History and Environment, and coeditor of the annual Accumulation series on e-flux architecture.

Giovanna Borasi is an architect, editor, and curator. Borasi joined the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in 2005 as associate director of Programs and has held subsequent positions as curator of Contemporary Architecture (2011–13) and chief curator (2014–20) before becoming director and chief curator in 2020. In this role she oversees the CCA’s curatorial trajectories and processes of institutional revaluation. Borasi’s work explores ways of doing architecture that challenge the conventional definition of the architect and that lie at the heart of the dialectic between societal and architectural change. She regularly contributes to international architectural publications, workshops, university courses, committees, and symposia.

Iker Gil (Chair) has been the executive director of the SOM Foundation since 2019. He is the founder of MAS Studio and editor in chief of the nonprofit MAS Context. 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. He was cocurator of Exhibit Columbus 2020–2021 and associate curator of the US Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Mario Gooden is a cultural practice architect and director of Mario Gooden Studio: Architecture + Design. His practice engages the cultural landscape and the intersectionality of architecture, race, gender, sexuality, and technology. His work crosses the thresholds between the design of architecture and the built environment, writing, research, and performance. Gooden is also a professor of Practice at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) of Columbia University where he is the interim director of the Master of Architecture program and codirector of the Global Africa Lab (GAL). He is a 2012 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and a 2019 National Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture recipient. Gooden is the author of Dark Space: Architecture, Representation, Black Identity (Columbia University Press, 2016) as well as numerous essays and articles on architecture, art, and cultural production. Gooden is Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design (VIAD) at the University of Johannesburg and a founding board member of the Black Reconstruction Collective (BRC).

Sarah Herda has been director of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts since 2006. Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation is the largest foundation in the United States committed to awarding project-based grants to individuals and institutions working at the forefront of architecture, and its role in the arts, culture, and society. Herda is credited with transforming the Foundation’s headquarters, the historic Madlener House, into a world-class public venue for architecture exhibitions and building one of Chicago’s most celebrated venues for public programs. She was the co-artistic director of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015 and serves on advisory boards for The Architect’s Newspaper, LAXART, the Mills College Art Museum, and Storefront for Art and Architecture. Herda is an Emerging Leader, class of 2015, at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. In 2009, Herda was named one of Icon Magazine’s 20/20—a list of 20 architects and 20 designers who are changing the way we work and think.