The 2021 Berkeley Prize essay winners respond to 'Architects in Service to the Community'

The International Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence revealed the field of 2021 winners today. Now in its twenty-third year, the annual essay contest, in correlation with the Community Service Fellowship Competition, tasked undergraduate architecture students worldwide to respond to this year's topic, "Architects in Service to the Community."

From a record 258 essay competition submissions of 500 words each, the jury selected the following winning proposals:

First Place Prize (Two-person team): Reva Saksena, Bachelor of Architecture program, and Mallika Sarabhai, Bachelor of Planning program, both at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India for "To Pride From Prejudice: An Architectural Transition"

Second Place Prize: Zoe Hammond, Bachelor of Environmental Design program at Montana State University, Bozeman, USA for "Home Means Nevada: Addressing Homelessness in Reno"

Third Place Prize #1: Gunraagh Singh Talwar, Bachelor of Architecture program at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India for "Mediums to Change"

Third Place Prize #2: Kiera Townsend, Bachelor of Architecture program at Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA for "The Urgency of Architectural Liberation"

Fourth Place Prize #1: Winta Assefa, Bachelor of Architecture program at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia for "To Stand Back and Observe"

Fourth Place Prize #2 (Two-person team): Saavi Natekar, Bachelor of Architecture program at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India and Ayesha de Sousa, Bachelor of Architecture program at the Goa College of Architecture, Panji, India for "The Architecture of the People: Contemporary India’s Quiet Rebellion"

Honorable Mention (Two-person team): Jacob Leckie Schluessel and 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"

Honorable Mention: Fathimath Ema Ziya, from the Maldives, Bachelor of Architecture program at the University of Bath, United Kingdom for "The Lost Children of the Cities"

Honorable Mention: Nicole Oliveira, Bachelor of Architecture program at the Associação Escola da Cidade, São Paulo, Brazil for "Until when will the real estate market dictate the rules?"

Click here to learn more about the winners of this year's Community Service Fellowship Competition.