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2021 Press ReleaseFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT:
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The 2021 Berkeley Prize focuses on the topic: “ARCHITECTS IN SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY.” A record 258 Essay Competition proposals of 500 words each, written by 359 individual undergraduate students collaborating in one and two-person teams from 36 countries were received in response to this year’s Question.
BERKELEY PRIZE 2021 QUESTIONAs a future architect, what is the best way you can serve
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The Essay competition timeline started on 15 September 2020 with proposals due 1 November 2020. From the proposals, 23 selected semifinalists submitted a 2500-word essay by 1 February 2021. Of these, nine were advanced to the Jury as finalists in mid-March. This year, all of the nine were recognized for their efforts as follows:
- A First Prize (shared by the two-person team); a Second Prize; two Third Prizes; two Fourth Prizes (one shared by a two-person team), and three Honorable Mentions (one shared by a two-person team). These 12 students split a purse totaling 35,000USD.
- In addition, four students receive Community Service Fellowships totaling 10,000USD
ESSAY COMPETITION
See all winning essays, photos, and full bios of the winners here:
http://berkeleyprize.org/competition/essay/2021/winning-essays
First Place Prize (Two-person team)
Ms. Reva Saksena studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program and Ms. Mallika Sarabhai studying in the Bachelor of Planning program, both at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India for: “To Pride From Prejudice: An Architectural Transition” (8500USD)
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(Introduction) “Architecture has long been a testimony of society. It has shaped not only society’s own identity, but that of its so-called ‘contradictions’ as well. While the identity of the ‘accepted’ collective continues to follow the norms and set up new ones, another identity is parallelly (sic) configured in the shadows discarded by the norm. The social needs of such individuals, although different, begin to be met outside of the accepted. This in turn links them to an alternate collective that finds solace in shared differences. Over the years, a wide range of thought-provoking perspectives has been curated in the Berkeley Prize pool of essays. In the larger context of architecture being a social art and facilitator of community engagement, these essays have highlighted ideas and efforts for social upliftment (sic) of underprivileged communities across the globe - the homeless, street-children, squatters, slum dwellers, migrants, minority ethnic groups, destitute women and differently-abled. These explorations have underlined the larger social responsibility for Architecture to amend and rehabilitate inequitable approaches plaguing society. Communities have struggled and continue to struggle to live in cultures where being different is not accepted. Architecture has even tried to undo damaging practices in instances where differing communities were forced to accept extinct beliefs or worse, sacrifice their own to be acknowledged. However, one such ‘contradiction’ of society seems to have missed the attention of Berkeley Essay Prize authors so far. It has also largely been left unaddressed (sic) by Architecture, especially in India - the third Gender…. (cont.) |
(Author’s illustrations for the essay)
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Aided by law, transgender people need not be afraid of shadows anymore. |
Charity no longer: Identity & recognition could be the vehicles of transformation for the Community. |
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The in-between: Experiencing the ‘outside’ from within the comfort of the threshold. |
Architecture exists beyond its physical notion- an expression of individuals within the collective. |
Second Place Prize
Ms. Zoe Hammond studying in the Bachelor of Environmental Design program at Montana State University, Bozeman, U.S.A. for: "Home Means Nevada: Addressing Homelessness in Reno” (6000USD)
Third Place Prize #1
Mr. Gunraagh Singh Talwar studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India for: "Mediums to Change” (4500USD)
Third Place Prize #2
Ms. Kiera Townsend studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at Drexel University, Philadelphia, U.S.A. for: "The Urgency of Architectural Liberation” (4500USD)
Fourth Place Prize #1
Ms. Winta Assefa studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia for: "To Stand Back and Observe” (3500USD)
Fourth Place Prize #2 (Two-person team)
Ms. Saavi Natekar studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India and Ayesha de Sousa from the Bachelor of Architecture program at the Goa College of Architecture, Panji, India for: "The Architecture of the People: Contemporary India’s Quiet Rebellion” (3500USD)
Honorable Mention (Two-person team)
Mr. Jacob Leckie Schluessel and Ms.Ting-Chun Yang, both studying in the Bachelor of Science, Major in Architecture program at RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany for: “Fostering Change through Images: How Architects Can Lead the Conversation” (1500USD)
Honorable Mention
Ms. Fathimath Ema Ziya, from the Maldives, studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at the University of Bath, United Kingdom for: “The Lost Children of the Cities” (1500USD)
Honorable Mention
Ms. Nicole Oliveira studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at the Associação Escola da Cidade, São Paulo, Brazil for: “Until when will the real estate market dictate the rules?” (1500USD)
All of the winning essays, plus more top-scoring essays are now available
to be read on the website on the BERKELEY PRIZE “Reserve” page,
see: http://berkeleyprize.org/endowment/the-reserve/
The Essay Prize Jury
Each year, the Prize Committee and the Jurors look to identify the most outstanding work among the many excellent essays and the research that those essays describe.
Utilizing the extensive review work of 65 Committee Members from around the world (see “Background” below), this year's four Essay Jurors are:
Gauri Bharat, Ph.D. trained as an architect and specializes in interdisciplinary approaches to architectural history. She developed and heads the Postgraduate Program in Architectural History and Theory at CEPT University, Ahmedabad India. The program is the only one of its kind in India and trains architects to work as scholars and public intellectuals using methods, practices, and approaches drawn from architectural history, theory and allied disciplines. In teaching and her own research, Gauri is keenly interested in the question of how people engage with the built environment. She recently published her book on Adivasi (indigenous) history titled "In Forest, Field, and Factory - Adivasi Habitations Through Twentieth Century India" (SAGE - Yoda Press, 2019). She is currently working on two major areas - first, histories of everyday life in Ahmedabad which is taking the form of publications and proposed public programs. The second is histories of making, which is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Gauri was a recipient of the 2014 Berkeley Prize Teaching Fellowship.
Aboubacar Komara, Guinea; U.S.A.: A native of Guinea, Aboubacar came to the United States in 2013, with the help of his extended family and community. At UC Berkeley, he studied architecture, focusing on providing housing for the world’s most vulnerable populations. Honoring the support that he received and that enabled him pursue a Berkeley degree, Komara founded Kaloum Bankhi in 2017, a sustainable housing project to help address housing related challenges in the area of Kaloum in Conakry, Guinea. After graduating in 2018 with his B.A.in Architecture, he returned to Guinea, teaming up with diverse stakeholders from UC Berkeley and beyond to scale and advance his project. Previously, Komara worked as a project lead at the Guinean Ministry of Investment and Public Partnerships and last year was a member of the Guinean team participating in the Singapore-UN-Habitat International Leaders in Urban Governance Programme. Komara currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and works at BDE Architecture. In his time off, he continues his work with Kaloum Bankhi with the help of a team in Guinea and in California. Mr. Komara is a Berkeley Prize Committee Member.
Clare Robinson, Ph.D., U.SA. is an Associate Professor of Architecture in the College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona. She is the recipient of numerous research fellowships and awards, including the recent Society of American Regional Planning History’s Catherine Bauer Wurster Prize for the article “Unrepressing Class to Reinterpret the Tradition of Midcentury Modern Architecture and Its Preservation in Tucson, Arizona.” Robinson’s recent and ongoing research contribute to the field of mid-twentieth century architecture and urban studies by grappling with the ways in which the everyday built environment facilitated the definition of social and aesthetic norms, and how professional designers used modern architecture and planning paradigms to define middle-class activities and spaces. The main body of her work focuses not only on social institutions, but also on social aspirations evidenced by architecture, urban environments, images, and texts. Dr. Robinson is a Berkeley Prize Committee Member.
Jørgen Bech Taxholm, Denmark is an architect with more than 35 years of experience in sustainable planning and architecture. He is the co-founder of Emergency Architecture & Human Rights (EAHR), a non-profit organization working for social groups that face humanitarian emergencies, cultural conflicts, inequalities, and marginalization. He is director of EAHR’s architecture department and during the years he has contributed to numerous projects in Jordan, Nepal, Italy and Denmark. In addition, he teaches the Master Emergency & Resilience at the Università Iuav di Venezia; at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen (KADK); and the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology (KEA). His research has focused on sustainable social planning all over the world, specializing in architectural interventions and procedural involvement and involvement of socially and culturally disadvantaged people world-wide to merge architecture and social science. He has achieved numerous awards, among them, the Biennale Chile First Prize, October 2017; Building of the year, ArchDaily 2018; Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2019; and Aga Khan Nomination 2018.
For fuller profiles of the Jurors, see:
http://berkeleyprize.org/competition/essay/2019/jury
For a list and biographies of all of the Berkeley Prize Committee Members, see:
http://berkeleyprize.org/endowment/berkeley-prize-committee
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Community Service Fellowship Competition
(All Essay Competition semifinalists are eligible to submit proposals for the new Community Service Fellowship.)
The purpose of the Community Service project is to further the students’ understanding of the social art of architecture by allowing them to implement some aspect of this year's topic that they have identified in their Berkeley Prize Essay. The Proposal requires that the student focuses on one of the following two options:
- To develop a detailed action plan indicating the specific steps needed to develop a new community service program linked to some aspect of architecture or the built world.
- Volunteering with an on-going community service program and/or organization of your choice linked to architecture or the built world.
Selected students receive a stipend of up to 3750USD sufficient for the program costs. This year’s four award winners are:
(CATEGORY #1: Action Plan)
Ms. Winta Assefa studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia to design and produce a prototype for a new generation of individual booksellers’ “Mobile Libraries.” 3680USD
For more information on this program, see:
http://berkeleyprize.org/competition/communityservice/2021/winning-proposals/winta-assefa-proposal
Mr. Michal Romaniuk, from Poland, studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at the Manchester School of Architecture, United Kingdom for “Reinterpreting the Modernist Heritage of Warsaw,” a project to conduct a series of workshops to determine community desires for future neighborhood projects. 3750USD
For more information on this program, see:
http://berkeleyprize.org/competition/communityservice/2021/winning-proposals/michal-romaniuk-proposal
(CATEGORY #2: Volunteering)
Ms. Gauri Patra studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at the Gautam Buddha University in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India for “Fundamental right to the city for the invisible” working with Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan (NGO) as a volunteer providing support for the homeless population in Shakarpur, Delhi, India. 1560USD
For more information on this program, see:
http://berkeleyprize.org/competition/communityservice/2021/winning-proposals/gauri-patra-proposal
Mr. M.S. Srinivas studying in the Bachelor of Architecture program at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, India for “Proposal to Volunteer with Social Design Collaborative,” a community-driven architecture practice, to learn about ameliorative design and inclusive planning. 1000USD
For more information on this program, see:
http://berkeleyprize.org/competition/communityservice/2021/winning-proposals/ms-srinivas-proposal
See all winning essays, photos, and full bios of the winners here:
http://berkeleyprize.org/competition/communityservice/2021/winning-proposals
The Community Service Fellowship requires a written and illustrated report at the conclusion of the project. These appear on the website in the Fall, 2021.
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Watch for the announcement of the 2022 BERKELEY PRIZE
15 September 2021
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Philip Tidwell (BP2003 First Prize) and Peripheral Projects Studio, The Säie pavilion, Helsinki, Finland (2015) |
BACKGROUND
The BERKELEY PRIZE - How it Works
Each year, the Berkeley Prize Committee poses a Question on the competition website. Students enrolled in any undergraduate architecture program throughout the world or those in collateral disciplines teamed with such students are invited to submit a 500-word essay proposal in English responding to the Question.
From this pool of essays, approximately 25-30 semifinalists are selected as particularly promising by the Prize Committee, a group of 65 international architects, architectural educators, social scientists, writers, and general thinkers. The semifinalists are then asked to submit a 2,500-word Essay expanding on their proposals.
The Committee then selects 8-9 of the best Essays and sends these finalists on to a jury of international architects and academics to select the winners. The Berkeley Prize Essay Competition is announced, papers submitted, and reader- and jury-reviewed all online.
The Essay semifinalists are also offered the opportunity to participate in various Fellowship Competitions. These have included the Travel Fellowship, the Community Service Fellowship and the Architectural Design Fellowship. In addition, the Prize sponsored an experimental Teaching Fellowship for academicians in the field.
During the past twenty-three years, the Prize has received 2799 Essay, Travel, and other Fellowship proposals from 3457 individual students representing dozens of schools of architecture in 83 countries. In recognition of these efforts, the Berkeley Prize is the recipient of the 2008 American Institute of Architects Collaborative Achievement Honor Award; and the 2002 American Institute of Architects' Education Honor Award.
The Berkeley Prize has also garnered international acclaim, not the least reason for which is its complete embracing of digital technology. In partial recognition of this outreach, the 2003 Berkeley Prize competition was named a special event of "World Heritage in the Digital Age," a virtual congress helping to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention.
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Winners' biographies, photographs, and their full submittals; archives of past competitions; information on Committee Members; and links to other articles on the social art of architecture are all posted at:
www.berkeleyprize.org
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