38 projects throughout the Americas were selected by
the MCHAP 2022 jury as outstanding
CHICAGO, IL (17 June 2022) – From the exceptional body of nominated projects, the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) announces 38 projects in MCHAP that were selected by the MCHAP 2022 jury as outstanding. The jury found commonality in the typologies and focus among these built works, more specifically meaningfully connect to the surrounding communities by employing regional means and methods to build; exhibiting immense respect for their context, climate, and environment; celebrating cultural values in their highest form; and addressing significant problems, with excellence– coupled with an understanding of the way architecture can impact a population and benefit people in their living, working and learning environments.
“The outstanding projects exhibited immense diversity across programs, scales and problems addressed; such solutions manifest across a variety of budgets, scales, and sizes,” said MCHAP 2022 Jury Chair Sandra Barclay in a statement prepared by the jury. Noteworthily, “There were projects which address how people live (housing), how they gather (community projects), how they solve problems (infrastructure and prosaic building types), how they engage the public and offer unique spaces (public spaces and museums), and how they honor history (memorials and historical projects). Regardless of their diversity in approach, every project, within its scope, explores improving the quality of architecture and enhancing life. All projects also show an immense sensitivity in responding to their physical and cultural context.”
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MCHAP 2022
The fourth prize cycle considers built works completed in the Americas between January 2018 to December 2021. The MCHAP 2022 jury is composed of Jury Chair Sandra Barclay (Lima, Peru), Founding Partner of Barclay & Crousse Architecture and Professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Mónica Bertolino (Córdoba, Argentina), Owner of Estudio Bertolino-Barrado and Professor at the School of Architecture, Urbanism, and Design at Córdoba National University; Alejandro Echeverri (Medellin, Colombia), Director of URBAM Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Ambientales, Owner of Alejandro Echeverri + Valencia Architects, and Distinguished Professor at TEC de Monterrey; Julie Eizenberg, FAIA (Santa Monica, USA), Founding Principal of Koenig Eizenberg Architects; Philip Kafka(Detroit, USA), President of Prince Concepts; and MCHAP Director Dirk Denison (Chicago, USA), Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture, ex officio.
The winner of the MCHAP.emerge prize will be announced on September 21, 2022 and the MCHAP main prize winner will be announced in April 2023. Both events will be held at an award ceremony in Chicago at S.R. Crown Hall, bringing together nominated architects, their teams and clients, and students and faculty into conversation on IIT’s historic Mies Campus
Restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic forced a two-year suspension of the biennial prize, but created an opportunity to assess its impact and reaffirm its agenda: to learn from architectural excellence that enriches lives. For this cycle jury criteria have been refined, and include consideration of how projects integrate natural, built, and human ecologies; create safe and new public spaces; engage communities as agents of change; use local workforces and materials; improve life in challenged communities; and more. The prize’s territory, the thirty-five countries of the Americas, includes a range of diverse, dynamic conditions that architecture must engage today. “MCHAP reinforces a unique North–South axis that creates potential for urgently needed cross-cultural learning at a moment of global change and crisis,” said MCHAP Director Dirk Denison.
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ABOUT MCHAP and MCHAP.emerge
The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) is a biennial prize that acknowledges excellence in built works of architecture in the Americas. The MCHAP Prize for Emerging Practice (MCHAP.emerge) is a corresponding acknowledgment of the best built work in the Americas authored by a practice in its first ten years of operation. MCHAP was conceived by the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology in 2013. Beyond simply identifying exceptional works, MCHAP brings nominators, jury members, students, faculty, practitioners and clients into an essential dialogue about what architecture makes possible. The result is a rich array of outputs: engaging events and symposia, inventive studios and workshops, and sophisticated, globally recognized publications.
Website: www.mchap.co/
Instagram: @miescrownhallamericasprize
MCHAP is currently in its fourth awards cycle, recognizing built works of architecture completed between January 2018 to December 2021. See the press release of the latest awards cycle here.