A series of strategies aimed at overcoming the minimum lot size zoning ordinance and designing across lot lines. © Gabriel Cuéllar.
The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 Research Prize. Two teams—one from the University of Michigan and the University of Cincinnati, and one from the University of Texas at San Antonio—will each receive a $40,000 prize to conduct original research that contributes to this year’s topic, “Adapting Housing Strategies to Respond to New Realities.” The Research Prize was created in 2018 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research that addresses the critical issues of our time.
Gabriel Cuéllar (University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning) and De Peter Yi (University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning) won with their proposal “Block by Block: Advancing New American Dreams and Housing Justice by Aligning Design with Zoning Reform.” The project seeks to design more just and desirable housing models by engaging the scale of the block. The team will study blocks through both top-down policies and ground-up efforts to reshape their futures, focusing on neighborhoods in Detroit and Cincinnati as starting points.
Juror Carlos Bedoya commented: “The proposal ‘Block by Block’ to reconsider housing, involving the scale of the block as a catalyst for a collective architecture that goes beyond the individual housing unit, provides an excellent opportunity to reflect upon and more broadly question contemporary issues related to housing, such as its dimension, the application of new mixed-used zoning programs, ecological impact, and cost.”
Courtyard Block directs California’s recent SB9 zoning reform toward more collective uses of open space in the typical residential block. © De Peter Yi.
The second winning proposal is “A Taxonomy of Vacancy: Are Underutilized Commercial Strips the Answer to San Antonio’s Housing Shortage?” led by Ian Caine, Esteban López Ochoa, and Wei Zhai (University of Texas at San Antonio School of Architecture + Planning) with Rudy Niño, Jr. (City of San Antonio, Planning Department) and Christine Quattro (Appalachian State University, College of Arts and Sciences). Pairing data analysis and design thinking, the project will examine how San Antonio policymakers could accelerate multifamily housing production by reimagining the potential of vacant or underused commercial parcels. This research project coincides with current efforts to accommodate an expected influx of over one million people into Bexar County over twenty-five years, requiring the creation of 500,000 new housing units.
“Uniquely focused on the intersection of research, pedagogy, and interdisciplinary collaboration, the SOM Foundation Research Prize offers critical support for ambitious methodologies and speculative inquiries that can steer new directions for the design professions. This year’s winning proposals tackle affordable housing through distinct lenses on urban growth: on the one hand, using data analysis to assess the potential of vacant commercial strips, and on the other, harnessing the scale of the block as the foundation for zoning reform,” mentioned juror Irene Sunwoo. “Both the rigor of each proposal and the divergence of their strategies for more equitable and sustainable housing models demonstrate the SOM Foundation Research Prize’s long-standing commitment to nurturing discourse and practices that advance our understanding of the ever-changing conditions of the built environment.”
The research team will create a taxonomy of vacant or underutilized parcels, establishing parameters related to size, cost, zoning, location, and use. © Ian Caine, J. William Arch, Melanie Bartholomew, Devon Duffin, Phuoc Luu, Diana Rodriguez, Evey Santillan, and Michelyn Smith.
The taxonomy of vacancy will focus on seven commercial strips that align with VIA Metropolitan Transit's 2040 Long Range Plan for BRT and LRT. © Ian Caine.
This year’s jury was led by SOM Foundation Executive Director Iker Gil and included Carlos Bedoya (Cofounder, PRODUCTORA; Founding partner, LIGA, Space for Architecture, Mexico City), Johanna Hurme (Cofounder, 5468796 Architecture, Winnipeg), Lorcan O’Herlihy (Founding Principal and Crea-tive Director, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects [LOHA], Los Angeles and Detroit), and Irene Sunwoo (John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago).
Research Prize recipients are expected to collaborate with students, faculty, and leaders from various disciplines to pursue their research topics. They will be required to document their findings and develop suggestions for application to professional practice. The outcome of the research will be shared publicly on the SOM Foundation’s website as well as other mediums identified by the winning teams.