Each year, The Architectural League of New York awards its prestigious Emerging Voices award to eight practices across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, whose work “represents the best of its kind, and addresses larger issues within architecture, landscape, and the built environment."
This is Emerging Voices' 35th year running, with the competition organized by League Program Director Anne Rieselbach and reviewed by an esteemed jury.
"The 2017 Voices personify the versatility of contemporary practice. Many firms take on multiple roles of designer, developer, and/or builder to address pressing issues in housing, institutional design, and the public realm. They embrace material experimentation, challenging sites, and an economy of means within budgetary constraints to create exemplary architecture," said Rieselbach.
This year’s recipients are…
Brian Bell and David Yocum
Principals, BLDGS, Atlanta, Georgia
In their practice, BLDGS undertakes extensive research to reveal what is hidden, and to discover a meaningful role for the unseen and unexpected, while being inclusive of the complexity of historical, cultural, and natural systems in which we live. Recent work includes the 2015 School of Building Construction for Georgia Tech, and the Congregation Or Hadah Synagogue, built in 2013.
Eduardo Cadaval and Clara Solà-Morales
Principals, Cadaval & Solà-Morales, Mexico City and Barcelona
Cadaval & Solà-Morales view their practice as an overlap between the three main fields within the discipline: theory, academy, and praxis, which they feel permits them the opportunity to engage in research, expression, and application, respectively. Recent projects include Córdoba- Reurbano, apartment residences added to a historic building in Mexico City, and CH 139, a mixed-use project incorporating residences, offices, and retail within the preserved shell of a Spanish Colonial façade in Mexico City.
Roy Decker and Anne Marie Duvall Decker
Principals, Duvall Decker Architects, Jackson, Mississippi
Duvall Decker Architects assert that Mississippi’s lack of public funds forces them to maneuver among the competing local cultural desires to “make do” and “to do more with less.” In 2012, they completed the Midtown Affordable Housing in Jackson, which includes 22 units of federally funded affordable housing alongside a renovated mixed-use services building.
Frida Escobedo
Principal, Frida Escobedo, Taller de Arquitectura, Mexico City
Frida Escobedo strives to “give room for growth and flexibility” in large-scale public projects, as demonstrated in her 2014 renovation of the Octavio Paz Library in Mexico City, which sought to establish a more fluid relationship between the library, street, and a nearby park. More modest projects such as her 2015 “pavilion” for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, comprised of conjoined platforms hovering above, and inserted within, the museum’s Northern Italian Renaissance-style courtyard.
Chris Leong and Dominic Leong
Founding Partners, Leong Leong, New York City
Leong Leong is driven by a curiosity for new organization typologies and aesthetic experiences, which offer new ways of living, working, and interacting with one another. Recent projects include the 2015 City View Garage in Miami and the 2014 U.S. Pavilion for the XIV Venice Architecture Biennale. Two projects scheduled for completion in 2019 include the Center for Community and Entrepreneurship in Queens, New York; and the Anita May Rosenstein Campus at the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
Thomas F. Robinson
Founding Principal, LEVER Architecture, Portland, Oregon
LEVER Architecture emphasizes the importance of material experimentation, including pioneering research into cross-laminated-timber (CLT), and believes that great work delivered with limited means requires precise architecture and a willingness to rethink how buildings are made. In 2018, the firm will complete a 12-story CLT high rise in Portland bringing together affordable housing, office space, and retail.
Jonathan Tate
Principal, OJT, New Orleans, Louisiana
Jonathan Tate believes context is “both formative and integral” to the firm’s projects, which seek to complement and celebrate the surrounding built environment. The firm researches social, spatial, historical, economic, ecological, and environmental factors to develop “multi-scalar processes specific to a project’s location.” In 2016, OJT completed two single-family houses that are part of an urban infill housing initiative.
David Scott and Susan Scott
Directors, Scott & Scott Architects, Vancouver, Canada
Scott & Scott Architects believe that a design’s refinement occurs with the continuous re-evaluation of use and experience. Recent projects include a 2012 cabin designed and constructed by the architects to withstand heavy snowfall, and Gulf Island Barn, a 2015 private barn and community space designed to serve many future generations of the client’s family.
Each of the eight Emerging Voices will feature in a lecture series in March. The schedule can be found here.
Members of this year’s jury included Sunil Bald, Mario Gooden, Lisa Gray, Paul Lewis, Jing Liu, Thomas Phifer, Bradley Samuels, Billie Tsien, and Ian Volner.
News via: The Architectural League of New York.
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