Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize Reveals MCHAP.emerge Finalists

Founded as an initiative to revitalize the architecture curriculum at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Chicago-based organization announced five finalists that represent emerging trends within the field.

The five finalists for Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize’s (MCHAP) biennial MCHAP.emerge prize of 2014 and 2015 have been announced. Founded as a biennial awards program by Wiel Arets, Assoc. AIA, dean of the college of architecture at the Illinois Insitute of Technology (IIT), MCHAP.emerge acknowledges a slew of built work that have come out of emerging practitioners within the Americas. Along with MCHAP’s director, Dirk Denison, FAIA, the five finalists will be honored at an April 1 symposium, where the final winner will be announced.

During the afternoon sessions leading up to this event, the finalists of the projects will present and discuss their work with the jury, IIT’s school of architecture faculty and students, and other members of the MCHAP network. The finalist chosen by the five-member jury will be rewarded with a $25,000 grant to support research and a publication related to the theme “Rethinking Metropolis,” which was chosen by Wiel Arets as a strategy to revitalize the architecture program and related discourse at IIT. Additionally, the finalist will be also be granted a MCHAP Research Professorship in the College of Architecture at IIT for the following academic year.

The jury that decided the finalists includes jury president Stan Allen, FAIA, architect and former dean of Princeton University’s School of Architecture; Florencia Rodriguez, editorial director of Pidra, Papel y Tijera Publishers in Buenos Aires; Ila Berman, architecture professor at the University of Waterloo; Jean Pierre Crousse of Barclay & Crousse in Lima, Peru; and Wiel Arets, who is also the principal and co-founder of Wiel Arets Architects in Amsterdam.

The following are the five finalists for the MCHAP.emerge 2014/2015 Prize.