Wheelwright Prize Finalists Presentations 2019

Three finalists for the GSD’s 2019 Wheelwright Prize will present proposals for two years of travel-based research, in exploration of architectural destinations that provoke new questions and inspirations. The travel prize aims to cultivate emerging architects who demonstrate full potential to make significant contributions to contemporary architectural practice, to innovate critical modes of inquiry, and to tackle the most pressing disciplinary issues of architecture and the design field at large. Each finalist will present their research proposal, and all three will engage in an audience Q&A session alongside K. Michael Hays.

The 2019 Wheelwright Prize finalists and their proposals are:

Maria Sheherazade Giudici: The Spring of our Discontent: Urban Space and Conflict in the Mediterranean City

Giudici is the editor of AA Files and the founder of Black Square, a collective engaged in research-by-design since 2014. Black Square makes projects, installations, books, as well as functioning as educational platform with a yearly summer workshop. Maria is the coordinator of the History and Theory course at the School of Architecture of the Royal College of Art and a Diploma Unit Master at the Architectural Association, London. She earned her PhD from Delft University in 2014; her theoretical research focuses on the construction of modern subjectivity, a topic she has explored in her writings and editorial projects – most recently, by coediting with Pier Vittorio Aureli Rituals and Walls: The Architecture of Sacred Space (2016). With Black Square, Maria pursues a trajectory which questions the link between form, image, and use. The first instalment of this research, Black Blocs (2017), has been commissioned by the FRAC Centre-Orléans, and will be followed in 2019 by How to Live in a Jungle, an experiment on the park as civic space exhibited at the Versailles Landscape Biennial.

Aleksandra Jaeschke: UNDER WRAPS: Architecture and Culture of Greenhouses

Jaeschke is an architect and an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design at The University of Texas at Austin. Born and raised in Poland, she holds a Doctor of Design degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and an AA Diploma from the Architectural Association in London. Jaeschke’s interests range from mainstream discourses on sustainability and broader notions of ecology, to cross-scalar integrative design strategies and the role of architects in transdisciplinary projects. Her doctoral dissertation Green Apparatus: Ecology of the American House According to Building Codes investigated how building regulations coupled with green building technologies and incentives shape environmentally-driven design and environmental awareness in general. While at the GSD, she coordinated the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians Housing Research and Prototype Design Project, exploring sustainability as a building-scale issue and that of embodied energy, transportation, and extraction of materials from landscapes. She also co-organized the 2016 Doctor of Design Conference #decoding, which investigated the impact of codes in mapping of environments, demarcation of legal territories, operational protocols of logistics and control of built environment, highlighting the interconnections between design techniques, economic processes, and regulatory mechanisms. She also taught at the Woodbury School of Architecture in Los Angeles focusing on the catalytic potential of urban infrastructures for public life.

Garrett Ricciardi: Ground Tour: Material Commons and Architecture as a Limited Natural Resource

Ricciardi co-founded Formlessfinder in 2011 as an interdisciplinary practice combining research, writing and design. Drawing from the disciplines of architecture, art and engineering the practice is focused on how the built environment can rethink its relationship to raw materials and natural resources. Ricciardi has been recognized internationally and received numerous design awards including the AIA NY New Practices award, a National Endowment for the Arts project grant, and was a finalist for the MOMA/PS1 Young Architects Program. Ranging from residential and commercial projects to public pavilions and installations, Formlessfinder’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the MAXXI in Rome, The Art Institute of Chicago, Design Miami, 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and has published the book “Formless Manifesto” with Lars Muller and Storefront for Art and Architecture. Currently Ricciardi is a Lecturer at UCLA UAD Ideas, and has taught numerous studios at Columbia University GSAPP (focused on the National Park System, Land Art, Land use, Remote Architecture, Infrastructure, and the American Southwest) and at Parsons School for the Constructed Environment. He holds a Master of Architecture from the Princeton University School of Architecture where he was awarded the Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize for Design, and is a graduate of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (BFA), and the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.   Previously he has worked for the offices of Steven Holl Architects and has collaborated with James Carpenter Design Associates on many large-scale projects including the recently completed St. Louis Arch Museum of Westward Expansion for the Gateway Arch National Park.

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