Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Wheelwright Prize 2020 for Early-career Architects

Deadline Date: January 26, 2020

Applications for the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Wheelwright Prize 2020 are now open. The Wheelwright Prize is an open international competition that awards $100,000 to a talented early-career architect to support expansive, intensive design research.

The Prize is dedicated to advancing original architectural research that is informed by cross-cultural engagement and that shows potential to make a significant impact on architectural discourse. They seek individual applicants who are accomplished but emerging, who are resourceful and risk-taking, and who can make the most of this extraordinary opportunity to advance a research project that will have a significant impact on his or her own professional development, and potentially on the discipline of architecture as a whole.

Prize

The winner of the Wheelwright Prize will receive:

• $100,000 prize to support the proposed research project
• Invitation to lecture at Harvard GSD
• Possibility to publish research in a Harvard GSD publication

Eligibility

• Applicant must have graduated from a professionally accredited architecture degree program in the past 15 years. (Graduates prior to January 2005 are ineligible.) Holders of multiple degrees may apply, provided they received their professional degrees between January 2005 and January 2020. Applicants need not be registered or licensed.
• Applicants may not have received the Arthur Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship previously.
• Winners of the Wheelwright Prize may not hold other fellowships concurrently.
• The Wheelwright Prize is available to individual entrants only; teams or firms will not be considered.
• Current Harvard GSD faculty, instructors, and staff are not eligible.
• For winners based in the United States, some amount of research must be undertaken outside the country.
• The Wheelwright Prize is intended for independent study and may not be applied to university tuition. However, the grant may be applied to fees for workshops and conferences.

Judging Criteria

Applicants will be judged on the quality of their design work, scholarly accomplishments, originality or persuasiveness of the research proposal, evidence of ability to fulfill the proposed project, and the potential for a successful project to make an important contribution to architectural discourse.

Application

Applicants must submit the following materials in English:

• Current CV.
• Portfolio (maximum of 10 images); each uploaded file should contain a single image, not spreads of multiple images. Each image must be dated and captioned. The jury is looking for personal work that demonstrates design talent; student projects may be included. If work is collaborative and/or generated by a firm, the applicant’s contribution to the work must specifically involve conceptual development and/or design, and the applicant’s role must be precisely identified.
• The portfolio may be supplemented by published articles or research papers written by applicant. Authored works should appear in their original format, with publication name and date clearly indicated (maximum 3, each clipping to be saved as a separate PDF). If original publication is not in English, please attach an English-language summary (maximum 2,500 characters) as an addendum to each PDF. If the clipping exceeds 15 pages, please create a compact PDF (no more than 10 pages) including a cover, sample pages, and brief summary (2,500 characters) of the text.
• A written description of proposed research project (maximum 6,000 characters). Applicants should articulate the relevance of their proposed research to the contemporary discipline of architecture. What are the consequences of the research project? How might it impact practice? Applicants should describe their proposed methodology and special insight, ability, and skill to execute your proposal. Strong proposals will demonstrate how the resources of the Wheelwright Prize will enable the project to be successful.
• List of three professional references (full name, affiliation, contact information, and relationship to the applicant). Letters are not required at this time.

Click here to apply

For more information, visit Harvard GSD Wheelwright Fellowship.