Yesterday, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in Chicago announced 99 recipients of more than $560,000 in grant funding for 72 projects related to innovation and the exploration of architecture through exhibitions, publications, film, live performance, and site-specific installations. Winners were selected from almost 700 submissions and represent 20 nations around the world.

“Many of our grantees this year are exploring the agency of design,” said Graham Foundation director Sarah Herda in a press release. “They are testing the limits of conventional practice to make new work that directly engages the social and political dimensions of the designed environment.”

A selection of winning projects are shown below, and the full list can be found on the Graham Foundation website.

From the 2017 Individual Grant to Leonardo Finotti for "Leonardo Finotti: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture, Volume 2."
Courtesy Leonardo Finotti From the 2017 Individual Grant to Leonardo Finotti for "Leonardo Finotti: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture, Volume 2."

Title: Leonardo Finotti: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture, Volume 2 by Leonardo Finotti (Publication)
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Project Description: This is the second photography book in an ongoing trilogy presenting images of Finotti’s photographic vision of undiscovered Latin American modern architecture, and offering an important overview of the region across nine latitudes: Buenos Aires, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Quito, Medellin, Caracas, Guatemala City, and San Juan.

Green Mosque, Camp Mackall, North Carolina, 2006. From the 2017 Individual Grant to Christopher Sims for "Theater of War: The Pretend Villages of Iraq and Afghanistan."
Courtesy Christopher Sims Green Mosque, Camp Mackall, North Carolina, 2006. From the 2017 Individual Grant to Christopher Sims for "Theater of War: The Pretend Villages of Iraq and Afghanistan."

Title: Theater of War: The Pretend Villages of Iraq and Afghanistan by Christopher Sims (Publication)
Location: Mebane, N.C.
Project Description: A photography-based book project that engages with the structures and inhabitants of mock training villages created on U.S. military installations in North Carolina, Louisiana, California, and elsewhere.

Towers Square, 2003, Open City, Viña del Mar, Chile. From the 2017 Individual Grant to Marcelo Araya, Andrés Garcés, Iván Ivelic, and Manuel Sanfuentes for "Amereida Phalene Latin América."
Towers Square, 2003, Open City, Viña del Mar, Chile. From the 2017 Individual Grant to Marcelo Araya, Andrés Garcés, Iván Ivelic, and Manuel Sanfuentes for "Amereida Phalene Latin América."

Title: "Amereida Phalene Latin America" by Marcelo Araya, Andres Garces, Ivan Ivelic, and Manuel Sanfuentes (Exhibition)
Location: Viña del Mar, Chile
Project Description: This two-fold installation, in both Athens and Kassel, features the work of participants from the Open City (Ciudad Abierta)—part commune, part pedagogical experiment, and part hands-on architectural laboratory on the Pacific coast of Chile.

Caitlin Berrigan, "Unfinished State" postcard, 2010–13, helicopter pad at Rachid Karami International Fair Park by Oscar Niemeyer, 1967–75, Tripoli, Lebanon. From the 2017 Individual Grant to Caitlin Berrigan for "Unfinished State."
Courtesy of Caitlin Berrigan and Archive Books Caitlin Berrigan, "Unfinished State" postcard, 2010–13, helicopter pad at Rachid Karami International Fair Park by Oscar Niemeyer, 1967–75, Tripoli, Lebanon. From the 2017 Individual Grant to Caitlin Berrigan for "Unfinished State."

Title: Unfinished State by Caitlin Berrigan (Publication)
Location: New York
Project Description: This project is a codex of visual narratives and conversations to navigate post-conflict landscapes, affective geographies, speculative real estate, and speculative fictions between Berlin and Beirut.

Library at Institute of Foreign Language, 1965–71, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. For the 2017 Individual Grant to Branden W. Joseph, Felicity D. Scott, and Mark Wasiuta for "Vann Molyvann and the Absent Archives of Cambodian Modernism."
Photo by Mark Wasiuta Library at Institute of Foreign Language, 1965–71, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. For the 2017 Individual Grant to Branden W. Joseph, Felicity D. Scott, and Mark Wasiuta for "Vann Molyvann and the Absent Archives of Cambodian Modernism."

Title: Vann Molyvann and the Absent Archives of Cambodian Modernism by Branden Joseph, Felicity Scott, and Mark Wasiuta (Research)
Location: New York
Project Description: Architect Vann Molyvann, an important cultural figure and protagonist in the history of Cambodian modernism, is the subject of this research project, which considers his work in relation to the fate of New Khmer modernist architecture during the military coup of 1970 and the subsequent rise of the Khmer Rouge.

Liam Young, "Renderlands" (film still of digital utopia constructed from scavenged 3D models), 2017, Los Angeles.
Courtesy Liam Young Liam Young, "Renderlands" (film still of digital utopia constructed from scavenged 3D models), 2017, Los Angeles.

Title: "Renderlands" by Liam Young (Film/Video/New Media)
Location: London
Project Description: This project is a documentary set in the outsourced video game studios and render farms of India, which follows a group of local animators through the office environments where they work, the digital landscapes they produce, and the cities where they live.

The Village, Houari Boumediene University of Science and Technology, 2013, Bab Ezzouar, Algeria. For the 2017 Individual Grant to Jason Oddy for "Concrete Spring: Oscar Niemeyer, Algeria, and the Architecture of Revolution."
Photo by Jason Oddy The Village, Houari Boumediene University of Science and Technology, 2013, Bab Ezzouar, Algeria. For the 2017 Individual Grant to Jason Oddy for "Concrete Spring: Oscar Niemeyer, Algeria, and the Architecture of Revolution."

Title: Concrete Spring: Oscar Niemeyer, Algeria, and the Architecture of Revolution by Jason Oddy (Research)
Location: London
Project Description: A pioneering exploration of Niemeyer’s extensive yet largely overlooked Algerian period, this project will form the basis of a long form essay in the AA Files journal, and subsequently a comprehensive monograph detailing this critical phase of the architect’s work.

Upcoming deadlines for the next round of grant applications are: grants to individuals (Sept. 15, 2017); Carter Manny Award (Nov. 15, 2017); and grants to organizations (Feb. 25, 2018)