The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the jury for the 2022 Robert L. Wesley Award. This year’s jury will be led by Robert L. Wesley (Retired Partner at SOM, Chicago) and will include Paola Aguirre (Founder of Borderless, Chicago), Jia Yi Gu (Director and Curator at MAK Center for Art and Architecture, West Hollywood, CA), and Ojay Obinani (Associate Principal at SOM, New York City).
Paola Aguirre is the founder of Borderless, an urban design and research practice based in Chicago. Aguirre has been trained as an architect and urban designer, and her professional experience includes working with government, universities, and architecture/urban design offices both in Mexico and the United States. She is also founder of Borderless Workshop, a research and collaborative platform focused on rethinking cities within the US–Mexico border region. On that front, she is the creator-producer of Mapeo Workshops that work with multiple universities and students from different programs to research, critically discuss, and creatively think about urban challenges using mapping as a main tool. She has been acknowledged by Next City Vanguard’s 40 Under 40 (2016), Impact Design Hub’s 40 Under 40 (2017), and Newcity Design 50: Who Shapes Chicago (2018).
Jia Yi Gu is an architectural historian, educator, and curator. Her work focuses on histories of representation and display practices in architecture, with an emphasis on models, exhibitions, and document history. She is currently director and curator of MAK Center for Art and Architecture. From 2014 to 2020, she served as director of Materials & Applications, a Los Angeles-based project space for experimental architecture. In 2016, she cofounded the architecture research & design studio Spinagu with Maxi Spina. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles Critical Studies program. Her doctoral research investigates the instrumentality of models in the postwar architecture office as a site of demonstration for architectural expertise.
Ojay Obinani is an associate principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)’s New York office. He is a registered architect with over seventeen years of experience in workplace strategy, large-scale commercial interiors, hospitality, residential, and media projects. Obinani is passionate about issues of equity and social justice in the profession. As a cofounder of SOM’s Equity Design Lab, he has focused on integrating equity-driven principles in the firm’s work and on pursuing new projects and partnerships to benefit underserved communities and underrepresented constituencies. In addition to managing large-scale building projects and leading social impact initiatives, Obinani serves as an educator and mentor to high school and college students. He was recognized with a service award by the late Congressman John Lewis for his advocacy work in empowering and mentoring young architecture enthusiasts through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) New York chapter’s Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) achievement program.
Robert L. Wesley (Chair) joined the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) in 1964 and became its first Black partner in 1984. During his nearly four decades with the office, he worked on an impressive range of civic, commercial, entertainment, master planning, and infrastructural projects in the United States and internationally, including Algeria, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. As lead project administrator and liaison with clients, Wesley managed and coordinated the execution of several complex projects—working closely with the client’s representatives, the construction manager or general contractor, and special consultants to ensure each project’s successful completion. Wesley retired from SOM on September 30, 2001.