THE ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL BERKELEY UNDERGRADUATE PRIZE FOR ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN EXCELLENCE

The Berkeley Prize has been suspended for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Explore the past 25 years of the Prize through the pages below.

Overview of the Berkeley Prize

INTRODUCTION TO THE BP2022-2023 TOPIC

In honor of the first Berkeley Prize (1998-99), The Architect Meets the Nursing Home, this year’s Prize explores the architect’s changing and growing role in assisting senior citizens to continue to lead their lives as independently as they wish, safely and in dignity, through enhanced programming and design.

View YouTube talks by Matthias Hollwich, an international architect who has a focus on aging:

Matthias Hollwich. Lecture "New Aging"

Matthias Hollwich | New Aging | Conscious Cities Conference No.2

Question To Past Winners: How do you think the Prize has influenced your professional life as an architect or in any other profession or career pursuit?

Benard Acellam, Assistant Architect at DE-ZYN FORUM LTD; Assistant Lecturer in Architecture at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda; BP Essay Prize Winner, 2015.

“Working in a developing country context such as Uganda provides a myriad of problems, but also opportunities to tailor-make architectural solutions that show that people and the environment matter. My professional life as an architect is about tackling these challenges and opportunities through each project I undertake.”

Resources

To Address the BP2022-2023 Question

https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/2117/171405/1/TTC1de1.pdf
(Dissertation with extensive project descriptions)

https://www.dezeen.com/tag/elderly/ (list of multiple articles)

https://www.dezeen.com/tag/retirement-homes/ (list of multiple articles)

Question To Past Winners: How do you think the Prize has influenced your professional life as an architect or in any other profession or career pursuit?

Philipp Goertz, Graduate Student at RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany; BP Travel Fellow, 2018

“During my time working on the essay and my visit to Japan, I felt that in architecture there is the possibility to genuinely engage with people and create a world in which people matter. This attitude carries on in my architectural works.”
Invited Essays on the Social Art of Architecture

Each year the Berkeley Prize Committee invites a distinguished professor or scholar in the field of architecture or the related social sciences to write about some aspect of the year's Berkeley Prize topic.

  • They are meant to help focus students' thoughts on the issues surrounding the year's Question.
  • They are a model for excellence in writing.
  • They exhibit both how defined and how broad the range of possible response to a Question.
Learn more
The Library

The social art of architecture encompasses a large field of inquiry that links design studies to people studies. In an ever-growing corpus of published work, researchers from a variety of disciplines work with architects to investigate how to make architecture better for all people. The various topics of the history of the BERKELEY PRIZE give a glimpse into the range of these studies. Each year, the PRIZE publishes “resources” to help participants further understand the specific topics. Included in The LIbrary is a selection of these resources as well as other articles and links that detail why architecture is and must be, first and foremost, about people.

Learn more

Committee Members

The BP2022-2023 Jury

In honor of the 25th Anniversary, the Berkeley Prize Committee who normally select the semifinalists and finalists will also act as this year’s Jury. These professionals and scholars from around the world represent some of the leading figures in their representative disciplines. They are all dedicated to pushing the field of architecture to do much more to integrate social issues and a social perspective into the design process.

Question To Past Winners: How do you think the Prize has influenced your professional life as an architect or in any other profession or career pursuit?

Ghina Kanawati, Architect and Researcher at CatalyticAction, Beirut, Lebanon; BP Essay Winner, 2018

“These experiences led me to my current work position as an architect and researcher at CatalyticAction, a charity that empowers vulnerable children and their communities through participatory built interventions in public spaces across Lebanon… The most rewarding feeling is when a child feels heard and happy to see a project to which they contributed become a reality.”

BP2022-2023 WINNERS

The Essay Winners:

First Place Prize

Hayden Painter studying in the Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Design program in the   School of Architecture at Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, USA for “A Vision for Aging in Rural Appalachia.” (9,000USD) (Read the full essay)

Second Place Prize (Two-person team)

Rashi Karkoon, studying for a Bachelor of Architecture degree in the Department of Architecture and Upasana Patgiri, studying for a Bachelor of Planning degree in the Urban and Regional Planning Department at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India for “Sab-ki Mandi: Enhancing the Markets of India as an Inclusive Public Space for the Elderly.” (5,500USD each)

Third Place Prize #1

Tushita Basak, studying for a Bachelor of Architecture degree in the Department of Architecture at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India for “Widows of Varanasi: The Ganga, the gallis and the grizzled.” (3500USD)

Third Place Prize #2

Lizzie Turak, studying for a Bachelor of Science, Major in Architecture degree in the College of Design, School of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA for “The Built Environment’s Response to Aging in Place in Metro Atlanta.” (3500USD)

Fourth Place Prize (Two-person team)

Ieshika Singh and Ashima Sani, each studying for a Bachelor of Architecture Degree in the Department of Architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India for "Greying Hair and Hopes: Senior Citizens of Mukarimnagar.” (2500USD each)

Honorable Mention

Jerome Kimani, studying for a Bachelor of Architecture degree in the Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Building Sciences at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Juja, Kenya for “FROM SPARE ROOM TO SPARE CHANGE: Adaptive reuse for economic revitalization of homesteads in Rural Africa.” (1500USD)

Honorable Mention

Mulika Stephen, studying for a Bachelor of Architecture degree in the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda for “Environmental Design for the Elderly.” (1500USD) 

All of the winning essays are available to be read on the website, see:
https://berkeleyprize.org/competition/essay/2023/winning-essays

The Travel Fellowship Winners:

Angelika Baileen Lejao, studying for the Bachelor of Science in Architecture degree in the School of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology at St. Mary’s University, Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, the Philippines. Travel to Denmark to attend the International Union of Architects (UIA) World Congress of Architects 2023: “SUSTAINABLE FUTURES, LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND.” (3700USD)

Maryanne Muthoni, studying for a Bachelor of Architecture degree in the Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Building Sciences at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Juja, Kenya. Travel to the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands for a summer program in Planning and Design for the Just City. (3700USD)

Saavi Natekar, studying for a Bachelor of Architecture degree in the Department of Architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India. Travel to Fez and Beni Oulid, Morocco (via Barcelona) to work as a volunteer on the Lam Alif Media Library project with Aziza Chaouni Projects. (3700USD)

Shaorya Sood, studying for a Bachelor of Architecture degree in the School of Architecture and Planning at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), Delhi, India. Travel to Germany to attend the GEN (Global Ecovillage Network) Europe and GEN Germany and Nature Community Gathering: “Living Together in a Changing World”; and visits to ecovillages. (3700USD)

All of the 2023 Travel Fellowship Proposals are available to be read on the website, see: https://berkeleyprize.org/competition/travel/2023/winning-proposals

The Travel Fellowship requires a written and illustrated report at the conclusion of the travel. These appear on the website in the Fall, 2023.
See Past Essay Prize Winners
See Past Travel Fellowship Winners
See Other Previous Fellowship Winners
The Reserve: Top Essays for the Past 20 Years

Question To Past Winners: How do you think the Prize has influenced your professional life as an architect or in any other profession or career pursuit?

Hadas Rix, Project Manager, Capital Projects, the University of Bristol, Bath, UK; BP Travel Fellow, 2005

“I founded a conservation consultancy in 2010 and was privileged to promote cultural heritage and design the restoration of significant buildings as a conservation architect. The Berkely prize provided me with the confidence to write about architecture, and I have prepared over fifty reports and heritage statements on listed buildings and heritage sites.“ Travel Fellow, 2005

About The Prize

Raymond Lifchez
History

The international Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence (BERKELEY PRIZE) was founded and continues to be led by Raymond Lifchez, Emeritus Professor of Architecture and City & Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley College of Environmental Design (CED), through the result of a generous gift to the CED's Department of Architecture by the late Judith Lee Stronach.

During the past twenty-five years, the Prize has received 2985 Essay, Travel, and other Fellowship proposals from 3785 individual students representing dozens of schools of architecture in 88 countries. The Prize has responded by making 188 cash awards to 225 individual students.

The Endowment History of the Berkeley Prize
Student Participants
Countries
Awards Granted
Individual Winners

Berkeley Prize Through The Years

Berkeley Prize News & Calendar

Conversations on Social Justice and Design

The College of Environmental Design and the Department of Architecture hosted a day-long symposium in April 2022 titled Conversations on Social Justice and Design, to honor Professor Emeritus Raymond Lifchez, Founder and Chair of the BERKELEY PRIZE. The symposium featured a spectacular list of speakers who have been instrumental leaders in shaping contemporary practices addressing social justice, particularly in universal design.

Speakers included Darren Walker, Maddy Burke-Vigeland, Jeffrey Mansfield, Elaine Ostroff, Valerie Fletcher, Victor Pineda, and Susan Schwelk with a keynote talk by Christopher Downey, our inaugural Lifchez Professor of Practice in Social Justice.

Conversations on Social Justice and Design Part I

Conversations in Social Justice and Design Part II

Conversations on Social Justice and Design Part III

Calendar

The Berkeley Prize for the 2023-2024 academic year has been suspended.

News

  • May 01, 2023

Berkeley Prize 2023 winners are announced! See details about the Essay Prize Winners and the Travel Fellows. Thanks to all who participated!

  • December 22, 2022

Food for thought: STIR rounds up five architectural projects that displayed commitment towards community upliftment and helped reinvent a social identity.

  • October 01, 2022

Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2022 puts the spotlight on community and culture. Read or listen to the report here.

  • September 15, 2022

BP 2023 LAUNCHES TODAY!

More news

THANKS TO ALL WHO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN BP2022-2023!
Read about this year’s winners -- Click Here