Wheelwright Prize 2014 finalists announced

Seven finalists have been announced for the Wheelwright Prize 2014. Established by Harvard GSD in 1935, the prize awards a $100,000 travel-based research grant to an early-career architect worldwide whose proposal best conveys original, scholarly, and professional design.

Since 2013, the prize is applicable to any architect who graduated within the last 15 years from a professionally accredited architecture degree program. Emphasizing international research, the winner must spend at least six months working outside of their home country and not in the U.S.

The 2014 competition received nearly 200 submissions from 46 countries. This year's jury featured GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi; GSD professors; and architects Jorge Silvetti, Iñaki Abalos, and Silvia Benedito; Museum of Modern Art architecture curator Pedro Gadanho; New York architect Linda Pollak of Marpillero Pollak; and Shohei Shigematsu, partner of OMA and its New York office director.

The jury selected the following finalists:

Jose Ahedo: Studio Ahedo, Barcelona
BArch 2005, Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura de la Universitat Internacional de Catalunya; MArch II 2010, Harvard GSD
Wheelwright proposal: Domesticated Grounds: Design and Domesticity Within Animal Farming Systems.

Jose Ahedo established his own firm, Studio Ahedo, in 2010. His first completed project is Blanca, a dairy complex in the Pyrenees, which includes 13 buildings comprising animal facilities, research labs, and an education center. He worked previously with Lopez-Rivera Arquitectes, aSZ arquitectes, and EQUIP Claramunt. He is currently collaborating on a project that will be presented as part of Rem Koolhaas’ Fundamentals, at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

Ana Dana Beros: Think Space, Zagreb, Croatia
MArch, 2007, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Architecture
Wheelwright proposal: INTERMUNDIA: Re-Imagining Border-Scape in Mediterranean Countries.

Ana Dana Beros is an independent architect, curator, editor, educator, and exhibition designer. She is the cofounder of ARCHIsquad and a board member of Think Space, a nonprofit that organizes conceptual architecture exhibitions. She is one of the curators of Monditalia, a section of Rem Koolhaas’ presentation at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

Alison Crawshaw: Alison Crawshaw Architecture, London
BArch 2000, Jesus College, Cambridge University, Cambridge; MArch 2004, Royal College of Art, London
Wheelwright proposal: The Poison and the Cure: Rubbish in the Information Age

Alison Crawshaw is an architect who has worked in London, New York, and in Italy. Her portfolio includes buildings, installations, and numerous public realm and strategic urban design projects. She was a senior architect at muf architecture/art for seven years. She was a Rome Scholar in Architecture n 2010–11, and participated in Common Ground, David Chipperfield’s 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2012).

Masaaki Iwamoto: Partner at Vo Trong Nghia Architects, Ho Chi Minh City
Bachelor of Engineering 2005 and Master of Engineering 2008, both from the University of Tokyo; registered architect in Japan
Wheelwright proposal: Tropical Skin: Study on New Building Envelope for Tropical Megacities

Masaaki Iwamoto joined the award-winning firm Vo Trong Nghia Architects in 2011 as a partner and director of the Ho Chi Minh City office. Iwamoto worked previously at Kazuhiko Namba + Kai-Workshop in Tokyo and was a research fellow at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK). His work, which includes low-cost housing, a kindergarten, and workplaces, has been widely published.

Jimenez Lai: Bureau Spectacular, Chicago
MArch 2007, University of Toronto
Wheelwright proposal: Caricatures, Fictions and Hyperboles: A Revisit of the World of Wonders

Jimenez Lai is the principal of Bureau Spectacular and an assistant architecture professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His previous employment includes stints at OMA, Atelier van Lieshout, and MOS. His work has been widely exhibited and published: His 2011 installation White Elephant is part of the MoMA collection, and a draft of his manifesto, Citizens of No Place (2012) has been archived at the New Museum. In 2012, Lai won the Architectural League’s Prize for Young Architects and in 2013, he won the Debut Award at the Lisbon Triennale. He will be representing Taiwan for the forthcoming Venice Architectural Biennale.

Sean Lally: Weathers, Chicago
Bs.LA 1996, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Landscape Architecture; MArch 2002, University of California, Los Angeles
Wheelwright proposal: Climate Design: The Architecture of Energies

Sean Lally is the founder of the firm Weathers and assistant architecture professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Lally co-edited Softspace: From a Representation of Form to a Simulation of Space (2007), guest-edited a special issue of AD Journal entitled “Energies: New Material Boundaries” (2009), and authored The Air on Other Planets (2013). He won the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture (2012).

Kaz Yoneda: Takram Design Engineering, Tokyo
BArch, 2007, Cornell University; MArch II 2011, Harvard GSD
Wheelwright proposal: Utopics of Cities: Amorphous Contemporaneity of Ideal

Kaz Yoneda is the founder of the Architecture and Space Design Unit at Takram Design Engineering. He worked previously at Sou Fujimoto Architects, and worked with the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) on a Detroit initiative in 2007. His design work has been exhibited at dOCUMENTA 13 (2012), the 12th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2010), and the Beijing Biennal (2010).

The winner will be announced on April 30. For further info, click here.