2022 Lyceum Fellowship - Underland

2022 Competition Overview

Underland - Project for The Friesenhahn Cave Site  

The project is sited on the Friesenhahn Cave site outside of San Antonio which is owned and managed by Concordia University in Austin, Texas. The cave is one of the most important paleontological sites in the United States. Homotherium serum or Scimitar Tooth Cats lived in the cave more than 15,000 years ago and used it as their den. The cave's original formation, with its descending entry ramp leading deep into the earth, made an ideal home for the Ice Age cats. This 20,000-year-old single-room den is located on an approximately four-acre site, situated in the midst of the suburban sprawl of San Antonio. The impressive feline remains originally found in the cave are in the Texas Memorial Museum on the University of Texas Campus.

The 2022 competition is open to architecture students currently enrolled in NAAB accredited programs in North America. Complete competition program and eligibility requirements can be found on the Lyceum Fellowship website.
 

PRIZES 

First Prize — $12,000 for three months of travel abroad

Second Prize — $8,000 for two months of travel abroad

Third Prize — $4,500 for one month of travel abroad

Citation — Travel runner up

Merit — Certificate of Recognition

Jon McKee Prize — Awarded at the discretion of the Lyceum Board, the Jon McKee Prize recognizes an outstanding travel statement, design project that was not awarded, or Merit or Citation winner, enabling the student to travel. The award amount will be determined by the Lyceum Board.

Competition Program and Themes

Located on the Friesenhahn Cave site, outside of San Antonio, Texas, the 2022 Lyceum Fellowship competition challenges students to design a Pleistocene Research Center.

The program introduces a number of overlapping themes or ideas to consider. The primary task is to create a boundary and threshold between the buildable portion of the protected historic cave area. Conceptually it is a boundary between the "present-day suburban condition" and the interior protected cave or "deep time" of the Pleistocene epoch (ice age). This is both a literal and conceptual boundary experience. Consider the experience of going back in time 20,000 years or so.

Download the full brief today!

Program Author + Jury Chair: Murray Legge, FAIA

1988 Lyceum Fellowship First Prize Winner

Murray Legge is a graduate of the Cooper Union School of Architecture in New York City. His professional achievements include receiving the 2006 AIA Austin Young Architectural Professional Award as well as more than 20 design awards, including two national AIA awards and the Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Award. Winner of the prestigious Lyceum Fellowship in 1988, he was also twice a finalist in Van Alen Institute competitions, including the Paris Prize.

His work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, and he has been a lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has also been a visiting critic. Murray is also a co-founder of Legge Lewis Legge, an interdisciplinary collaborative, based in Austin and New York. With a focus on large-scale installations, public art and landscape design, Legge Lewis Legge has been widely recognized including receiving the 2010 Austin Art in Public Places Community Arts Award. The studio received an honorable mention in the international design competition for the Flight 93 memorial and was a finalist in the Boston Logan Airport 9/11 memorial competition. More.

ABOUT THE LYCEUM FELLOWSHIP

The Lyceum Fellowship was established in 1985 by Jon McKee, AIA (1927-2013). Through its annual design competition, the Lyceum seeks to advance the profession of architecture by engaging students in design and travel. The American Institute of Architects has recognized the Lyceum nationally for the effective pursuit of this mission with the prestigious AIA Collaborative Achievement Award. For more than 35 years, the Lyceum has engaged highly noted architects from all areas of the field to develop programs for the annual competition. The Lyceum has awarded more than half a million dollars in travel prizes to date, enriching the education of highly talented students through travel to more than 100 different countries. More.