“A Serpentine Science” and “Deserted Border Lands” win the 2016 Norden Fund

Every year, students and recent grads of architecture, architectural history, and urban studies get a chance to receive up to $5,000 in travel/study grants, thanks to the Deborah J. Norden Fund. The Norden Fund was established in 1995 in memory of architect and arts administrator Deborah Norden.

The Architectural League of New York recently announced the lucky winners for 2016: Bryan Maddock for “A Serpentine Science: Affonso Eduardo Reidy’s Housing Pair” and Caitlin Blanchfield and Nina Kolowratnik for “Deserted Border Lands: Mapping Surveillance along the Tohono O’odham Nation.”

Read on for more about the winning proposals.

Bryan Maddock: “A Serpentine Science: Affonso Eduardo Reidy’s Housing Pair”

“Bryan Maddock will travel to Rio de Janeiro to retrace the legacy of architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy, whose work ‘took the form of serpentine social housing blocks that integrated with the mountainous local topography and sought to ‘elevate the working class both physically and symbolically’. After Reidy tragically died at age 55, many of his original documents were destroyed and his buildings fell into disrepair as authoritarianism rose to power in the region.

Maddock will conduct comprehensive surveys of the landscape where Reidy’s buildings are still extant in hopes to create an online visual archive of Reidy's work through drawings, video, and text — thus illuminating architecture's ability to ‘operate as a fantastic offense for the renewed city.’”

Maddock received his Master of Architecture degree from the Yale School of Architecture and will study architecture and urban studies at the University of Cambridge in the coming year. He currently works as a project designer for Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).

Caitlin Blanchfield and Nina Kolowratnik: “Deserted Border Lands: Mapping Surveillance along the Tohono O’odham Nation

“Caitlin Blanchfield and Nina Kolowratnik will travel to the border between Sonora, Mexico and the Tohono O’odham reservation near the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona — a complex boundary experiencing increasingly aggressive border security measures that impose surveillance on sacred lands and restrict the movement of the Tohono O’odam people.

Through a series of interviews, a community workshop, drawings, and an accompanying article, the team will use interdisciplinary methodologies to explore ‘issues of spatial politics in border regions, indigenous rights, and critical landscape discourse.’”

Both Caitlin Blanchfield and Nina Kolowratnik received Master of Science degrees in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture from Columbia University. Blanchfield is managing editor at The Avery Review, and Kolowratnik works as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s GSAPP.

Check out last year's winner in the link below.