SOM Foundation announces prize recipients for 2012

Pavlo Kryvozub is winner of the 2012 SOM Prize. The recent graduate of the University of Cincinnati (MArch., June 2012) will use the $50,000 award to facilitate travel in Europe and Asia pursuing research on his topic, “Synthesis of Art & Architecture.” Kryvozub says, “The synthesis of the arts within the field of architecture has a long tradition which spans throughout human history…I would like to look for the continuity of development and interaction of architecture with other arts in both historical and contemporary contexts.”

The 2012 SOM Travel/Research Fellowship, which comes with a stipend of $20,000, is awarded to Annie Stone, who received a BArch. from the University of Tennessee this past May. Stone’s topic is “CISTERCIAN—an analysis of sight(e)”—a proposal to develop a critical methodology for approaching sight within a given frame of reference to “expand beyond the immediacy and exactitude of the camera’s eye, to capture a meaningful essence.”

Submissions for the SOM Prize were received from students at 34 schools in the U.S. The jury of Chicago-based architects included Ronald Krueck, FAIA, Krueck & Sexton Architects; John Ronan, AIA, John Ronan Architects; and Brian Lee, FAIA, Partner, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM)—who served as jury chair.

Margaret Wildnauer is winner of the $10,000 2012 Structural Engineering Travel Fellowship for her proposal, “The Fourth E.” Her research will build on Dr. David Billington’s seminal description of the defining characteristics of structural art as “efficiency, economy and elegance.” Wildnauer writes, “As environmental concerns become more prominent, a central priority in the mind of structural engineers and designers should be sustainability and therefore, ‘environment’ must be added as a fourth criterion for a successful structure.”

San Francisco-based professionals comprised the structural jury: Tom Buresh, University of California, Berkeley; Richard M. Kunnath, PE, Pankow Builders, Pasadena; Marsha Maytum, Leddy, Maytum, Stacy Architects, San Francisco; Mark Saunders, Rutherford & Chekene, San Francisco; and SOM Structural Engineering Director Mark Sarkisian—who chaired the group. +