Now in its second year, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) has announced the six winners of its Richard Rogers Fellowship. (Learn about last year's inaugural six winners here.) The three-month residency program will once again take place at the Rogers, Hon. FAIA–designed Wimbledon House in London where participants will conduct cross-disciplinary architectural and urban research. This year's winners hail from Switzerland, Japan, Australia, and the United States.
The 2018 fellows, along with brief descriptions of their research proposals:
Irina Davidovici, Zurich
Housing as Urban Commons: Social Practices for Collective Dwelling
Project Description: "Davidovici will use her residency to conduct a comparative study of London co-housing schemes and Zurich housing cooperatives, viewed through the common criteria of citizen participation, self-governance, sustainability, and social inclusion."
Peter Buš, Zurich
Large-Scale Urban Prototyping for Responsive Urban Environments: Towards Distinctive and Customized Future Cities
Project Description: "Peter will investigate potentialities of computation, digital fabrication methods, and prototyping practices for their applications of construction deliveries in large-scale urban contexts and their capacities to respond to citizens’ necessities."
Aleksandr Bierig, Cambridge, Mass.
The Ashes of the City: Energy, Economy, and the London Coal Exchange
Project Description: "Bierig will be advancing his dissertation research, exploring the architectural, infrastructural, and commercial regulations of the 18th-century coal trade, including documentation on coal taxation, records of debates on the London Coal Trade, and designs for metropolitan improvements."
Alexis Kalagas, Zurich
Deflating the London Bubble: Non-Profit Housing Strategies
Project Description: "Kalagas intends to explore how alternative models of affordable housing could be adapted and scaled in places like London that are reckoning with this acute challenge. In particular, Kalagas is interested in whether non-speculative, rental-based developments could succeed in cities shaped by a persistent dream of homeownership, and take root in an overheated property market."
Kaz Yoneda, Tokyo
Growing Pains: Comparative Analyses of Un/Fulfilled Potentials and Legacies of Two Olympiads
Project Description: "Yoneda’s ... research will focus on the design protocols of megascale developments, and 'Tokyoism,' which he calls a projective manifesto for a city without one. His fellowship research takes a topical and critical look at the 2012 London Olympics, in comparison to Tokyo's forthcoming 2020 Olympics, to conduct analyses of its transparent process, innovation, and design evaluation."
Cathy Smith, Newcastle, Australia
The Rise of the (Property) Guardians: Urban Tenure and Temporary Occupation in the Twenty-First Century City
Project Description: "Smith’s interdisciplinary research will develop an ethical and theoretical framework for engaging with the emergent phenomenon of London 'property guardianship,' a term used to describe the sanctioned, temporary occupation of vacant commercial and residential buildings in Europe, North America, and Australia."
The 2019 Richard Rogers Fellowship cycle will begin accepting applications in October 2018. For full bios and project descriptions, visit the Harvard GSD website.
