Thandi Loewenson Awarded 2024 Wheelwright Prize

Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is pleased to name Thandi Loewenson  the winner of the 2024 Wheelwright Prize . The $100,000 grant supports investigative approaches to contemporary architecture, with an emphasis on globally minded research.

Loewenson’s project, Black Papers: Beyond the Politics of Land, Towards African Policies of Earth & Air, engages a dynamic terrain of social and spatial relations in contemporary Africa. Whereas the importance of land in the context of African liberation movements and subsequent postcolonial governments has been analyzed mainly in terms of private property, dispossession and redistribution, and agriculture and mining, Loewenson pushes our understanding in radically new directions with the introduction of an analytic framework she calls “the entanglement of Earth and Air.” Through this framework, Loewenson expands these interpretations of land to include many overlapping terrains above and below ground, spanning rare metals buried far below the Earth’s crust and reaching up to the digital cloud and Earth’s ionosphere, and ranging in scale from a solitary breath of air to entire weather systems.

Ultimately, Loewenson’s project will examine how colonial capitalist systems of racialization, dispossession, and exploitation are co-constituted and endure across multiple, entangled Earthly and airborne terrains. The Wheelwright Prize will support her study, which will include aerial techniques for surveying and prospecting, as well as the mining of “technology metal,” minerals employed in networked devices that also underwrite a global system of digital dispossession. Among the forms her findings will take are the Black Papers, studies that aim to shape both policy discourse and public perception. Incorporating drawings, moving image, and performances as well as critical creative writing, the Black Papers are designed to reach broad audiences through popular media including video, radio, and social platforms like WhatsApp.

“The question of land, and its indelible link to African liberation and being, echoes across the continent as a central theme of liberation movements and the postcolonial governments that followed. Instead of solely engaging land as a site of struggle, this work situates land within a network of interconnected spaces, from layers deep within the Earth to its outermost atmospheric reaches,” says Loewenson. “This research presents a radical shift: developing a new epistemic framework and a series of open-access, creatively reimagined policy proposals—the Black Papers—in which earth and air are not distinct, but rather concomitant terrains through which racialization and exploitation are forged on the continent, and through which they will be fought. The Wheelwright Prize is uniquely placed to support such ambitious inquiry, enabling me to bring together seemingly disparate yet closely bound parts of our planet, and agitate for a more just and flourishing world.”

The Wheelwright Prize will fund two years of Loewenson’s research and travel. She plans to focus her work in seven African nations: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

“Expanding what constitutes architectural research, Thandi defines a sectional slice of inquiry that spans from the subterranean to the celestial. Her project is nothing short of a full reconceptualization of land and sky as material realities, sources of value, and sites of political struggle,” says Sarah M. Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at the GSD. “Such vision exemplifies the kind of ambition the Wheelwright Prize is meant to support. Along with the rest of the jury, I could not be more thrilled that she is this year’s winner.”

In addition to Whiting, jurors for the 2024 prize include: Chris Cornelius, professor and chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning; K. Michael Hays, Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory and co-director of the Master in Design Studies program at the GSD; Jennifer Newsom, co-founder of Dream the Combine and assistant professor at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning; John Peterson, curator of the Loeb Fellowship at the GSD; and Noura Al Sayeh, head of Architectural Affairs for the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities.

“Loewenson’s research examines our planetary section, reaching from the probative violence of mining and extractive terrains to the fog of particles in the air we breathe and the digital fragments ricocheting in our outer atmosphere. Building from a necessary set of scholarly research about the entanglements of earth, air, bodies, and dispossession (on multiple timescales), her work extends these arguments into a material practice rich with layers—the matter that matters to our time,” says Newsom. “Loewenson promises to think with the materiality of place, collapsing the spaces of poetics and the landscapes of policy with the literal terrain of the context these projections shape. Her proposal was clear-headed about its purpose, research methods, and outputs, yet remained nimbly open to the propulsive capacity for her work to fractal outward in ‘activist academic practice’—to new audiences, interlocutors, policymakers, students, and neighbors. Loewenson constructs a relational field of inquiry essential for our discipline.”

The Wheelwright Prize supports innovative design research, crossing both cultural and architectural boundaries. Winning research proposal topics in recent years have included the environmental and social impacts of sand mining; the potential of seaweed, shellfish, and the intertidal zone to advance architectural knowledge; and new paradigms for digital infrastructure.

Loewenson was among four distinguished finalists selected from a highly competitive and international pool of applicants. The 2024 Wheelwright Prize jury commends finalists Meriem Chabani, Nathan Friedman, and Ryan Roark for their promising research proposals and presentations.

Born in Harare, Loewenson is an architectural designer/researcher who mobilizes design, fiction, and performance to stoke embers of emancipatory political thought and fires of collective action, and to feel for the contours of other, possible worlds. Using fiction as a design tool and tactic, and operating in the overlapping realms of the weird, the tender, the earthly, and the airborne, Loewenson engages in projects which provoke questioning of the status-quo, whilst working with communities, policy makers, unions, artists, and architects to act on those provocations. A senior tutor at the Royal College of Art, she holds a PhD in Architectural Design from The Bartlett, UCL. Loewenson is a co-founder of the architectural collective BREAK//LINE —an “act of creative solidarity” that “resists definition with intent”—formed at The Bartlett in 2018 to oppose the trespass of capital, the indifference towards inequality, and the myriad frontiers of oppression present in architectural education and practice today. She is also a contributor to EQUINET , the Regional Network on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa, a co-founder of the Fiction, Feeling, Frame  research collective at the Royal College of Art, and a co-curator, with Huda Tayob and Suzi Hall, of the open-access curriculum project Race, Space & Architecture.

The GSD Announces Finalists for the 2024 Wheelwright Prize

Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is pleased to announce four shortlisted architects for the 2024 Wheelwright Prize: Meriem Chabani, Nathan Friedman, Thandi Loewenson, and Ryan Roark. The Wheelwright Prize is an international competition for early-career architects.

Winners receive a $100,000 fellowship to foster innovative architectural research that is informed by cross-cultural engagement and can make a significant impact on architectural discourse. Winning research proposal topics in recent years have included the environmental and social impacts of sand mining; the potential of seaweed, shellfish, and the intertidal zone to advance architectural knowledge; and new paradigms for digital infrastructure.

The 2024 Wheelwright Prize drew a wide pool of international applicants. A winner will be announced later in June.

Jurors for the 2024 prize include: Chris Cornelius professor and chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning; K. Michael Hays, Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory and co-director of the Master in Design Studies program at the GSD; Jennifer Newsom, co-founder of Dream the Combine and assistant professor at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning; John Peterson, Curator of the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard GSD; Noura Al-Sayeh, Head of Architectural Affairs for the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities; and Sarah M. Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at Harvard GSD.

The shortlisted architects are:

Meriem Chabani
Algeria-born, Paris-based Chabani is the founder and principal of NEW SOUTH , an award-winning architecture, urban planning, and anthropology practice prioritizing spaces for vulnerable bodies in contested territories. Her work on complex sites includes the Taungdwingyi cultural center in Myanmar, the Globe Aroma refugee art center in Brussels, and the upcoming Mosque Zero in Paris. She currently teaches at ENSA Paris Malaquais and the Royal College of Arts. In 2020 Chabani won the Europe 40 under 40 award. She is a recipient of the Graham Foundation Grant and was named one of the leading young female architects in France by AMC in 2023.
Chabani’s proposal is titled “On Sacred Grounds: Sanctuaries in the Secularocene.”

Nathan Friedman
Friedman is co-founder of the Mexico City–based design office Departamento del Distrito and a Professor in the Practice at the Rice University School of Architecture. His office was an official contributor to the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial and received the 2022 Architectural League of New York Prize, recognized for a diverse body of work that operates at the intersection of politics, identity, and the built environment. Friedman holds an MS from the Department of History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art at MIT and a BArch from Cornell University.
Friedman’s project is titled “Sovereign Systems: Resource Management in Latin America.”

Thandi Loewenson
Born in Harare, Loewenson is an architectural designer/researcher who mobilizes design, fiction, and performance to stoke embers of emancipatory political thought and fires of collective action, and to feel for the contours of other, possible worlds. Using fiction as a design tool and tactic, and operating in the overlapping realms of the weird, the tender, the earthly and the airborne, Loewenson engages in projects which provoke questioning of the status-quo, whilst working with communities, policy makers, unions, artists and architects to act on those provocations.
Loewenson’s proposal is titled “Black Papers: Beyond the Politics of Land, Towards African Policies of Earth & Air.”

Ryan Roark
Roark , PhD, AIA, is an architect, writer, biochemist, and Assistant Professor of Architecture at IIT in Chicago, where her research focuses on radical adaptive reuse and its role in urban development. At IIT, she directs the second-year undergraduate studio, on housing, and runs a lab where she develops novel biomaterials for use in retrofits. Her writing on the history of preservation, reuse, and urbanism has been published in JSAH, Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, and the book Ruskin’s Ecologies, among other publications. She has previously taught at Georgia Tech and Rice. She has her MArch from Princeton and her PhD in Oncology from Cambridge University. Roark’s proposed project is titled “Biomaterial Protocols: From Waste to Walls.”

Prizes & Honors 2024

Each year at commencement, the Harvard Graduate School of Design confers awards on graduating students who demonstrate exceptional scholarly achievement, leadership, and service. Congratulations to the student award recipients, and to all 2024 graduates for your tremendous accomplishments.

Prize-Winning Thesis Projects

KEUR FÀTTALIKU — The House of Recollection

Mariama M.M. Kah (MArch II ’24)

Bådehus

Yeonho Lee (MArch II ’24)

How to (Un)build a House? A Reinvention of Wood Framing

Clara Mu He (MArch I ’24)

Learning from Quartzsite, AZ: Emerging Nomadic Spatial Practices in America

Mojtaba Nabavi (MAUD ’24)

Reforesting Fort Ord

Slide Kelly (MLA I AP, MDes ’24)

INSURGENT GEOLOGY: Mineral Matters in the Arctic

Melanie Louterbach (MLA I ’24)

Seeding Grounds: Working Beyond Arcadia in The Pyrocene

by Stewart Crane Sarris (MLA I ’24)

School Awards

Gerald M. McCue Medal

The Gerald M. McCue Medal is awarded each year to the student graduating from one of the school’s post-professional degree programs who has achieved the highest overall academic record.

• Haewon Ma (MDes ’24, Narratives Domain)

Digital Design Prize

The Digital Design Prize is presented by the Graduate School of Design to the students who have demonstrated the most imaginative and creative use of computer graphics in relation to the design professions.

• Chun Tak Chung (MArch I AP ’24)

Peter Rice Prize

The Peter Rice Prize honors students of exceptional promise in the school’s architecture and advanced degree programs who have proven their competence and innovation in advancing architecture and structural engineering.

• Clara Mu He (MArch I ’24)

 Plimpton-Poorvu Design Prize

The Plimpton-Poorvu Design Prize recognizes the top team or individual for a viable real estate project completed as part of the GSD curriculum that best demonstrates feasibility in design, construction, economics, and in fulfillment of market and user needs.

• 1st Prize: Ziyang Dong (MArch I ’25)
• 1st Prize: Jasmine Ibrahim (MRE ’24)
• 1st Prize: Jian Li Oh (MUD ’24)
• 1st Prize: Benjamin John Parker (MAUD ’24)

• 2nd Prize: Chandler Caserta (MArch I ’25)
• 2nd Prize: Austin N Sun (MArch I, MLA AP ’24)
• 2nd Prize: Kei Takanami (MArch I ’25)
• 2nd Prize: Amber Zeng (MArch I ’25)

• 2nd Prize: Catherine Shuying Chen (MArch I ’25)
• 2nd Prize: Aaron Smithson (MArch I, UP  ’25)
• 2nd Prize: Maggie May Weese (MUP, MPH ’24)

• Honorable Mention: Jaime Espinoza (MRE ’24)
• Honorable Mention: Chris James (MRE ’24)
• Honorable Mention: Miguel Lantigua Inoa (MArch II, MLA AP ’24)

Clifford Wong Prize in Housing Design

The Clifford Wong Prize in Housing Design aims to help re-establish the essential role of architects in society to provide not only the fundamental needs of human shelter but to meet the challenge of designing creative solutions for improving living environments. The prize is awarded for the multi-family housing design that incorporates the most interesting ideas and/or innovations that may lead to socially oriented, improved living conditions.

• Magdalen Elizabeth Musante (MArch I ’24)

Best Paper on Housing

• Jorge Enrique Mutis (MAUD ’24)

Irving Innovation Fellowship

The Irving Innovation Fellowship offers a graduating student the opportunity to extend their research and discovery beyond their time as a student and work with a group of mentors and colleagues to contribute to the school’s pedagogy and dialogue on an annually changing topic.

• Melanie Louterbach (MLA I ’24)

Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship

• Kimberlee Diane Córdova (MDes ’24, Narratives Domain)

Druker Traveling Fellowship

Established in 1986, the Druker Traveling Fellowship is open to all students at the GSD who demonstrate excellence in the design of urban environments. It offers students the opportunity to travel in the United States or abroad to pursue study that advances understanding of urban design.

• Curry Julius Hackett (MAUD ’24)

Architecture Awards

American Institute of Architects Medal

The American Institute of Architects Medal is awarded to a professional degree student in the Master in Architecture graduating class who has achieved the highest level of excellence in overall scholarship throughout the course of their studies.

• Sungyeon Kristine Chung (MArch I ’24)

Alpha Rho Chi Medal

The Alpha Rho Chi Medal is awarded to the graduating student who has achieved the best general record of leadership and service to the department and who gives promise of professional merit through their character.

• Oluwatosin Odugbemi (MArch I ’24)

James Templeton Kelley Prize

The James Templeton Kelley Prize recognizes the best final design project submitted by a graduating student in the architecture degree programs.

• MArch I: Clara Mu He  (MArch I ’24)
• MArch II: Mariama M.M. Kah (MArch II ’24)
• MArch II: Yeonho Lee (MArch II ’24)

Julia Amory Appleton Traveling Fellowship in Architecture

The Julia Amory Appleton Traveling Fellowship is given to a student in the Department of Architecture on the basis of academic achievement as well as the worthiness of the project to be undertaken.

• Magdalen Elizabeth Musante (MArch I ’24)

Kevin V. Kieran Prize

The Kevin V. Kieran Prize recognizes the highest level of academic achievement among students graduating from the post-professional Master in Architecture program.

• Thomas Day (MArch II ’24)

Dept. of Architecture Faculty Design Award

The Department of Architecture Faculty Design Award was established by the faculty of the Department of Architecture with the aim of recognizing significant achievement within a body of design work completed by a student at the GSD. This award is given to graduating students from each of the department’s two program.

• Siyu Zhu (MArch I ’24)
• Ihwa Choi (MArch II ’24)

Dept. of Architecture Certificate of Academic Excellence

The Department of Architecture Certificate of Academic Excellence is awarded by the faculty of the Department of Architecture to a graduate of the professional degree program in architecture (MArch I) in recognition of their academic achievement throughout their course of study in the program.

• Nana Komoriya (MArch I ’24)

Landscape Architecture Awards

Thesis Prize in Landscape Architecture

The Landscape Architecture Thesis Prize is given to the graduating student who has prepared the best independent thesis during the past academic year.

• Slide Kelly (MLA I AP, MDes ’24)
• Melanie Louterbach (MLA I ’24)
• Stewart Crane Sarris (MLA I ’24)

American Society of Landscape Architects Certificates

Nominated by the faculty in the GSD’s Department of Landscape Architecture, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) awards a certificate of Honor and a Certificate of Merit to students enrolled in the Master in Landscape Architecture program who have “demonstrated a high degree of academic scholarship and of accomplishment in skills related to the art and technology of landscape architecture.”

• Leila Sophia Breen (MLA I ’24), Certificate of Merit
• Julia Leah Hedges (MLA I ’24), Certificate of Merit
• Kai Alycia Walcott (MLA I ’24), Certificate of Merit
• Brian Kohan (MLA I AP ’24), Certificate of Honor
• Xinran Ma (MLA I  ’24), Certificate of Honor
• Zeinab Maghdouri Khubnama (MLA I AP ’24), Certificate of Honor

Norman T. Newton Prize

The Norman T. Newton Prize is given to a graduating landscape architecture student whose work best exemplifies achievement in design expression as realized in any medium.

• Christopher Lucas Dobbin (MLA I AP ’24)

Peter Walker & Partners Fellowship for Landscape Architecture

The Peter Walker and Partners Fellowship for Landscape Architecture is awarded to support travel and study for a graduating GSD student to advance their understanding of the body of scholarship and practices related to landscape design.

• Gracie Rae Meek (MLA I AP ’24)
• Daniella Renee Slowik (MLA II ’24)

Jacob Weidenman Prize

The Jacob Weidenmann Prize is awarded to the student of the most distinguished design achievement graduating from the Department of Landscape Architecture.

• Nakakamol Chueathue (MLA II  ’24)

Charles Eliot Traveling Fellowship in Landscape Architecture

The Charles Eliot Traveling Fellowship is awarded annually as the highest honor by the Department of Landscape Architecture to one of its graduates.

• Stewart Crane Sarris (MLA I ’24)

Urban Planning and Design Awards

Academic Excellence in Urban Planning

The Award for Academic Excellence in Urban Planning and Urban Design honors graduating students from each of the programs who have achieved the highest academic record.

• Daniel Montoya (MUP ’24)
• Michael Christopher Whelan (MUP ’24)

Academic Excellence in Urban Design

• Benjamin John Parker  (MAUD ’24)

Award for Outstanding Leadership in Urban Planning and Urban Design

The Award for Outstanding Leadership in Urban Planning and Urban Design honors graduating students from each of the programs who have demonstrated outstanding leadership during their time at the Graduate School of Design.

• Olufemi Olamijulo (MUP ’24)
• Pia Kochar  (MAUD ’24)

Thesis Prize in Urban Planning & Design

The Planning and Design Thesis Prize is given to the graduating students in each of the programs who have prepared the best independent theses during the past academic year.

• Mojtaba Nabavi (MAUD ’24)

Award for Excellence in Project-Based Urban Planning

The Award for Excellence in Project-Based Urban Planning is given to students who have demonstrated exceptional ability in urban planning projects including research and design studios throughout their course of study.

• Nur Shlapobersky (MUP ’24)

Award for Excellence in Urban Design

The Award for Excellence in Urban Design is given to students who have demonstrated exceptional design ability throughout their course of study in the Urban Design program.

• Yimeng Ding (MAUD ’24)

American Planning Association Outstanding Student Award

The American Planning Association Outstanding Student Award recognizes outstanding attainment in the study of planning by students graduating from accredited planning programs. The recipient of the award is chosen by a jury of planning faculty at each school.

• Briana Villaverde Uriarte (MUP ’24)

Design Studies Awards

Dimitris Pikionis Award

The Dimitris Pikionis Award recognizes a student for outstanding academic performance in the Master in Design Studies degree program.

• Rosita Palladino (MDes ’24, Ecologies Domain)

Design Studies Domain Awards

• Rosita Palladino (MDes ’24, Ecologies Domain)
• Treyden Chiaravalloti (MDes ’24, Mediums Domain)
• Huirong Ye (MDes ’24, Narratives Domain)
• Gabriel Jean-Paul Soomar (MArch II, MDes ’24, Publics Domain)

Design Engineering Awards

Overall Academic Performance Award

The Overall Academic Performance Award recognizes a graduating MDE student for outstanding academic performance in the Master in Design Engineering degree program.

• Binita Gupta (MDE ’24)

Leadership and Community Prize

The Leadership and Community Prize recognizes one or more graduating students who have displayed outstanding leadership and community building within the Design Engineering cohort and who have represented MDE values to the larger world.

• Ghalya Alsanea (MDE ’24)
• Priyanka Pillai (MDE ’24)

Outstanding Design Engineering Project

• Priyanka Pillai (MDE ’24)
• Julius Stein (MDE ’24)

Alumni Award

The Alumni Award recognizes and celebrates the diversity, range, and impact of outstanding GSD alumni leaders within their communities and across their areas of practice. It underscores the essential role GSD graduates play in leading change around the world.  Founded and led by the GSD Alumni Council, 2024 marks the fourth year of this initiative.

Ron Ostberg, who received his Master in Architecture (MArch) from the GSD in 1968

Ron Ostberg receives this award for exceptional service to the GSD community, outstanding ambassadorship to the school through the broader university and Harvard Alumni Association, and for playing a critical role in forming the Alumni Council as we know it today.

Gretchen Schneider Rabinkin, who received her Master in Architecture (MArch) from the GSD in 1997

As Executive Director, Gretchen Schneider Rabinkin oversees operations and management of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, one of the largest, oldest, and most active chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Harry G. Robinson, III, who received his Master in City Planning in Urban Design from the GSD in 1973

Harry G. Robinson is a former professor of architecture and Dean Emeritus of the School of Architecture and Design at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Calvin Tsao, who received his Master in Architecture from the GSD in 1979

Calvin Tsao is a recognized and leading voice in contemporary architecture whose work draws from a lively engagement with a variety of art forms.

Niall Kirkwood Elected Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences recently announced that Niall Kirkwood, Charles Elliot Professor of Landscape Architecture, has been elected a member of the honorary society in 2024.

Kirkwood is one of 250 new members—including Apple CEO Tim Cook, author Jhumpa Lahiri, and actor/producer/activist George Clooney—across 31 areas of expertise being recognized for their excellence and dedication to societal issues. “We honor these artists, scholars, scientist, and leaders in the public, non-profit, and private sectors for their accomplishments and for the curiosity, creativity, and courage required to reach new heights,” said President of the Academy David Oxtoby in the organization’s press release. “We invite these exceptional individuals to join in the Academy’s work to address serious challenges and advance the common good.”

According to its mission, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences was founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock, and 60 other scholar-patriots to convene “leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address

issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together ‘to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.’” Previously elected members include Benjamin Franklin (1781), Charles Darwin (1874), Albert Einstein (1924), Margaret Mead (1948), Marin Luther King, Jr. (1966), Madeline K. Albright (2001), and Salman Rushdie (2022).

Induction ceremonies for new members will be held at the Academy’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in September 2024. 

Loeb Fellowship Announces the Class of 2025

The Loeb Fellowship  at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) is proud to welcome the class of 2025 Loeb Fellows. These visionary practitioners and activists are transforming public spaces and urban infrastructure, rectifying health and environmental injustices, addressing housing needs, and preserving cultural, natural, and architectural heritage. They are inspired and inspiring mid-career professionals who come from diverse backgrounds around the world but share passion and purpose—to strengthen their abilities to advance equity and resilience and to harness the power of collective action.

During their ten-month residency at Harvard GSD, Loeb Fellows immerse themselves in a rich academic environment, auditing courses at Harvard and MIT, exchanging insights, and expanding professional networks. They engage actively with Harvard GSD students and faculty, participate as speakers and panelists at public events, and convene workshops and other activities that encourage knowledge sharing and creation. Throughout, Loeb Fellows consider how they might refocus their careers and broaden the impact of their work.

The ten class of 2025 Loeb Fellows are:

Mariana Alegre, founder and executive director of Sistema Urbano, Lima, Peru

Pierre-Emmanuel Becherand, head of design, culture, and urban planning for the Grand Paris Express, Paris, France

Dr. Leanne Brady, health systems activist and filmmaker, Cape Town, South Africa

Shana M. griffin, founder of PUNCTUATE, New Orleans, USA

Nikishka Iyengar, founder and CEO of The Guild, Atlanta, USA

Tawkiyah Jordan, vice president of housing and community strategy, Habitat for Humanity, New York, USA

Tosin Oshinowo, founder and principal of Oshinowo Studio, Lagos, Nigeria

Sahar Qawasmi, cofounder Sakiya – Art | Science | Agriculture, Ramallah, Palestine

Matt Smith, cofounder and director, Building Common Ground, Santa Fe, USA

Tunde Wey, social practice artist, Lagos, Nigeria, and Detroit, USA.

“Every year, Loeb Fellows bring an incomparable breadth and diversity of experience to the GSD. They inspire us with their accomplishments, enrich conversation across our school, and challenge us to think critically about how designers can create a more just world,” says Sarah M. Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at Harvard GSD, “I could not be more excited to welcome the class of 2025 to campus next fall, and to see what they achieve during their year in residence with us.”

“The most valuable and provocative aspect of the Loeb Fellowship is who we identify and embrace as the very broad group of practitioners that shape our built and natural environment,” says Loeb Fellowship curator John Peterson. “From writers to activists, and architects to physicians, the incoming class of 2025 is a wonderful expression of our value in diversity.” Peterson is an architect, activist, and a Loeb Fellow in the class of 2006.

The Loeb Fellowship continues its collaboration with the ArtLab at Harvard University  to welcome Shana M. griffin as its 2025 Loeb/ArtLab Fellow. griffin will have access to studio space and will be able to engage with the ArtLab community and its intellectual resources and networks.

Bree Edwards, director of the ArtLab, a laboratory for research in the arts, says “I look forward to ways that the ArtLab’s creative community will engage with and learn from the cross-disciplinary practice of artist, activist, and scholar Shana M. griffin,” the fourth recipient of the Loeb/ArtLab Fellowship. Previous recipients are Jordan Weber ’22, Dario Calmese ’23, and Joseph Zeal Henry ’24.

After their year in residence at Harvard GSD, Loeb Fellows join a powerful worldwide network of over 450 lifelong Loeb Fellowship alumni including recognized leaders like Jordan Weber ’22, Rick Lowe ’02, Robin Chase ’05, Monica Rhodes ’22, Mary Means ’82, Eleni Myrivili ’20, Gisli Marteinn Baldursson ’15, Mark Lamster ’17, Janet Echelman ’08, and Andrew Freear ’18.

The Loeb Fellowship traces its roots to the late 1960s, when John L. Loeb directed a Harvard GSD campaign based on the theme of “Crisis.” Loeb saw the American city in disarray and believed Harvard could help. He imagined bringing promising innovators of the built and natural environment to Harvard GSD for a year, challenging them to do more and do better, convinced they would return to their work with new ideas and energy.

GSD Faculty and Alumni Win 2024–25 Rome Prize

Four members of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) community are among the 31 winners of the 2024­–25 Rome Prize. Awarded annually by the American Academy in Rome (AAR), this prestigious fellowship includes a stipend, workspace, and room and board for up to ten months at the Academy’s campus, located on the Janiculum Hill in Rome, where recipients undertake advanced independent work and research in the arts and humanities.

Michelle Jaja Chang MArch ’09, current Assistant Professor of Architecture at the GSD, is the winner of the Arnold W. Brunner/Frances Barker Tracey/Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize in Architecture. Chang focuses on the techniques and histories of architectural representation. Her project, to be explored during her time at the Academy, is titled Material Resistance to Symbolic Form.

Anthony Acciavatti MArch ’09, Diana Balmori Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture at Yale University and principal of Somatic Collaborative in New York City, is the recipient of the Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael Rapuano/Kate Lancaster Brewster Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture. Acciavatti works at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and the history of science and technology. His AAR project is titled Groundwater Earth: The World before and after the Tubewell.

Dan Spiegel MArch ’08 and Megumi Aihara MLA ’07 are the joint recipients of the Garden Club Prize of America/Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture. The two are principals of the Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW), a San Francisco–based a design firm that operates at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urban design. In addition, Spiegel is a Continuing Lecturer at the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. Spiegel and Aihara’s project at AAR is titled Landscapes of Fire.

“The Rome Prize is one of the most storied fellowship programs in the United States,” said AAR President Peter N. Miller , as quoted in the AAR’s recent announcement .  “Over a thousand people compete for the chance to live and work in Rome, inspired by the city and one another. The Rome Prize winners represent a bridge between the United States and Italy, but also between a present of potential and a future of achievement.” This year’s Rome Prize recipients were selected from 1,106 applications (a record number), for an acceptance rate of 2.9 percent.

Updated May 8, 2024

Leslie Ponce-Diaz Awarded a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans

Leslie Ponce-Diaz (MArch II ’25) has been named a 2024 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow , joining a class of 30 distinguished graduate students in the United States. The merit-based program for immigrants and children of immigrants awards up to $90,000 to each fellow to support their graduate studies. The award “shines a light on how special it is to be the first in my family to graduate from college and go to a master’s program,” Ponce-Diaz said.

The child of immigrants from Mexico, Ponce-Diaz was born in Kansas City, where her father and other family members worked in construction. This early experience sparked her interest in the built environment and design, which she has continued to pursue as a Dean’s merit scholar in the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

In addition to receiving funding for their studies, Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows join a community of recipients and program alumni. “I’m most looking forward to being connected to a community of professionals from across disciplines who share a similar background as me: immigrants and children of immigrants,” Ponce-Diaz said. “It means a lot to be connected to people who understand that part of my identity.”

Prior to arriving at the GSD, Ponce-Diaz pursued a bachelor’s degree in architecture with double minors in nature sustainability and Latin American cultural studies at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She was awarded the RISD First-Generation Legacy Building Award for her commitments to supporting first-generation and Latinx students on and off campus.

At the GSD, Ponce-Diaz has studied architecture from around the world, including public housing in Paris and Zurich as well as monasteries in Mexico City. “Having the privilege to be able to see architecture and cultures of different places has been a special honor to experience at the GSD,” she said. “Being at the GSD has been important not only for my education, but also for my community back home in Kansas City.”

GSD Names Karenna Gore 2024 Class Day Speaker

Karenna Gore (AB ’95) will address the graduating class of the Harvard Graduate School of Design during Class Day exercises on Wednesday, May 22.

Gore is the founder and executive director of the Center for Earth Ethics (CEE) and Visiting Professor of Practice of Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Gore formed CEE in 2015 to address the moral and spiritual dimensions of the climate crisis. Working at the intersection of values, ethics, and ecology, she guides the Center’s public programs, educational initiatives, and movement-building. She also is an ex officio faculty member of Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

Her previous experience includes serving as director of Union Forum at Union Theological Seminary, a platform for theological scholarship to engage with civic discourse and social change. Gore also worked at the legal center of Sanctuary for Families, which serves victims of domestic violence and trafficking; was director of community affairs for the Association to Benefit Children, which provides early childhood education and other services for New York City families living in poverty; and was an associate with the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

Gore is the author of Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America (2006), and has written for numerous publications, including Slate, El País (Spain), and the New York Times. She serves on the boards of the Association to Benefit Children, the Sweetwater Cultural Center, and Riverkeeper. She is also an expert in the United Nations’ Harmony with Nature Knowledge Network, an online platform of practitioners, academics, and researchers.

A graduate of Harvard College, Gore earned her law degree from Columbia Law School and a master’s degree in social ethics from Union Theological Seminary.

Gore’s address will take place in the Gund Hall Backyard. Please check the GSD website for schedule updates and information about live-streaming.

Kongjian Yu Featured in the New York Times for his “Sponge City” Approach to Urban Floodwater Management 

Among the challenges posed by climate change, floodwater looms large. Today, cities grapple with regular inundations brought by intensifying downpours and extreme weather events, and conventional approaches to stormwater management—drainage pipes, concrete channels, and the like—are proving insufficient. Landscape architect Kongjian Yu (DDes ’95) offers an alternative solution, one that welcomes the water rather than fights to expel it. Yu calls this concept the “sponge city,” an idea that has been applied in 250 Chinese municipalities since 2015.

A recent New York Times article by Richard Schiffman, titled “He’s Got a Plan for Cities That Flood: Stop Fighting the Water,” details Yu’s sponge city approach and includes commentary by Niall Kirkwood, Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Graduate School of Design.

In place of concrete drainage infrastructures, sponge cities embrace native vegetation, land formations, and constructed wetlands to slow and absorb excess water locally before it floods streets and subways. Such living landscapes offer additional benefits, as they simultaneously filter pollutants from surface water, provide habitats for wildlife, and offer recreational spaces for urban dwellers.

In September 2023, Yu delivered the Sylvester Baxter Lecture at the Graduate School of Design, “Adaptation: Political, Cultural, and Ecological Design—My Journey to Heal the Planet.” He discussed how his agricultural upbringing, experiences with the art of Chinese landscaping, and studies at the GSD inform his ideas about urban water management. The following month, the Cultural Landscape Foundation awarded Yu the 2023 Cornelia Han Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (also known as the Oberlander Prize). Yu is founder of the Beijing-based firm Turenscape and professor at Peking University in Beijing.  

John Ronan Selected to Design the Fallen Journalists Memorial in Washington, DC

The Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation (FJMF) recently announced that John Ronan Architects , led by principal John Ronan FAIA (MArch ’91), will design the first national memorial dedicated to slain journalists and press freedom. To be located on the National Mall in Washington, DC, the Fallen Journalists Memorial “honors the lives lost in the pursuit of truth and celebrates the First Amendment rights in American democracy,” according to the FJMF’s press release. The memorial’s design incorporates glass elements through which visitors navigate to reach a place of remembrance.

Established in 1999 and based in Chicago, John Ronan Architects embraces an interdisciplinary approach to design that it has deployed for a range of project types, from private homes to educational complexes to high-rise office towers. The firm can now add a memorial to this list.

FJMF’s choice of Ronan as designer culminates a ten-month selection process during which a ten-member selection committee, led by distinguished architecture critic Paul Goldberger, reviewed more than fifty proposals from the United States and abroad. The committee narrowed the field to Ronan and four other finalists, all of whom have ties to the GSD: MOS (Michael Meredith MArch ’00 and Hilary Sample); Hood Design Studio (Walter Hood, Loeb Sr Scholar ’21), NADAA (Nader Tehrani MAUD ’91 and Arthur Chang), and Höweler + Yoon (Eric Höweler, Associate Professor in Architecture at the GSD, and J. Meejin Yoon MAUD ’97). Ultimately, Ronan won the commission on the strength of his team’s “unique and compelling design concept,” notes FJMF chairperson David Dreier in the press release, “which calls for the use of transparent materials to convey themes of clarity and light,” thereby reinforcing “the importance of the work of journalists, photojournalists, and a free press.”

“It’s a very abstract undertaking,” says Ronan. “How do you put the First Amendment into physical form, or remember fallen journalists?” He began by exploring materials related to issues of “transparency and distortion,” which led to layers of glass. Ronan characterizes the visitor’s movement through the glass structures as “a journey of discovery,” echoing the way discrete facts, pieced together by an investigative journalist, coalesce into a story. Ronan envisions the memorial’s design as an architectural manifestation of this accumulative experience. The strategy of choreographed spatial progression recalls an earlier noteworthy project in Ronan’s portfolio—the building for the Poetry Foundation (2010) in Chicago, likened on the firm’s website to a poem “revealed line by line.”

The memorial will occupy a triangular island parcel on the National Mall, formed by the intersection of Independence Avenue, Maryland Avenue, and 3rd Street, in direct view of the US Capitol Building. This site is quite fitting, Ronan notes, as the memorial is “set amidst governmental emblems of power and authority yet stands apart, independent of them as well—like a journalist observes power and its mechanisms but is separate from it.”

Ronan feels honored to be the foundation’s chosen designer for the Fallen Journalists Memorial. “The role of the journalist has never been more important and the ideals of a free press never more consequential,” says Ronan. “The timing is very appropriate for a memorial like this, appreciating journalists, the risks they take to pursue the truth, and how difficult that has become in recent years.”

Congress authorized the FJMF in December 2020, and Ronan’s final design will become public after receiving federal approval in the next nine to twelve months. The memorial’s dedication is expected in late 2028.