MCHAP.student 2016 Announced

The winner of the newly established student award, MCHAP.student, was announced at S. R. Crown Hall, home of IIT Architecture Chicago on 19 October 2016. The award was presented to (a)typical office by Tommy Kyung-Tae Nam and Yun Yun from the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.

(a)typical office by Tommy Kyung-Tae Nam and Yun Yun 

Tommy Kyung-Tae Nam currently works as a Designer at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Chicago. Previously, he worked as a Junior Designer at SHoP Architects in New York and as an Architectural Intern at SOM in Chicago. He received a Master of Architecture at the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Growing up in the city of Chicago inspired and catalyzed his passion for the field and study of architecture. Nam is specifically interested in work consisting of the collection of data, analysis of information and space, and networks of forces that define and expand architecture. He is one of the most recent recipients of the Architecture Student Research Grant at Taubman College, for his project The Dialogue between Drawing Machines and Human Ambience.

Born in China, Yun Yun works at Michael Maltzan Architecture, Los Angeles. Previously, she worked at RTKL in Shanghai and THUPID in Beijing. She received a Master of Civil Engineering from Purdue University, a Master of Architecture from Taubman College, and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Tianjin University, China. A LEED Green Associate, Yun is interested in design that incorporates advanced technologies and refined details.

Nam and Yun received the Taubman College Burton L. Kampner Memorial Award for best graduate thesis project for (a)typical office, developed with the guidance of Faculty Advisor Adam Fure.

As part of the MCHAP mission to illuminate the best built works of architecture in the Americas, the authors of each winning project collaborate with IIT Architecture Chicago and MCHAP to undertake research and to produce a publication. 

More than 70 schools from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay, United States and Venezuela nominated graduating student projects for consideration for the newly launched MCHAP.student.

The MCHAP Jury announced the finalists of the MCHAP.student 2015-16 on September 30, 2016:

Contemporary Monuments, an Architecture of Frugality - François-Luc Giraldeau, McGill University Space to Breathe: An Architecture for the Age of Smog - Vuk Filipic, University of Calgary

Micro Urban Operations: A Stage In Panquehue - Claudio Torres Salazar, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile Chañaral Wetland Reclaiming Park- Angel Quiroz González, Universidad de Chile

A Possible Project. On History, Preservation And Abandonment - Andrés Cotignola & Carolina Tobler, Universidad de la Republica

(a)typical office- Kyung Tae Nam, Yun Yun. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

A Walk Around Music: The Salt Mine Sensorium of Detroit - Hannah Katherine Lasota, Pennsylvania State University

Understanding And Interpretation In Architecture- Alex Cheng, Virginia Tech School of Architecture and Design