Announcing the Winners of the Spring 2023 SoA Awards

The Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture is proud to announce the student winners of the Spring 2023 SoA Awards. These awards provide over $47,000 of funding support to undergraduate and graduate students. Awards recognize student work in public interest design, design and representation, sustainability, real estate, and recognize professional promise. Following the ceremony, a reception presented by EPIC Metals was held in the College of Fine Arts Great Hall. Learn more about this spring’s winners below. More information is available on the SoA Awards page.

First Place: Graham Murtha, B.Arch ‘25 & Jackie Yu, B.Arch ‘25

Title: Step Binding

Award: $1,800

Jury Comment: Here we have a “modular” project (in both assigned task and resultant design) which manages to avoid banality in form and appearance by incorporating EPIC’s ‘Archdeck-A’ for one of its key organizing and structural components. A thoughtful arrangement of roof elements serves to both facilitate exterior rainwater management as well as contribute to a lively and distinctive interior environment. This holistic scheme earns further distinction by convincingly employing adaptive reuse of the very containers used to transport the structure to the project’s location; exploring a possible site arrangement of these features adds another level of engagement to the project’s use potential and ultimate physical expression.

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Second Place: Michael Bi, B.Arch ‘25 & Jason Shao, B.Arch ‘25

Title: Disaster Relief Library

Award: $1,400

Jury Comment: This design demonstrates careful planning in realizing its various programmatic requirements into a compact, yet technically sophisticated temporary structure. This is a strong example of clear construction logic leading to clear spatial organization. The project deserves high marks for an overall pleasing design aesthetic, as well as intuitive assembly dynamics and thoughtful, consistent use of EPIC’s ‘Toris (A)’ floor and roof decking panels

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Third Place: I Lok U, B.Arch ‘25 & Norman Situ, B.Arch ‘25

Title: Hawkers Library

Award: $1,000

Jury Comment: The design demonstrates skillful use of long-span acoustical EPIC roof decking to create roof forms that effectively engage a strategy to enhance the design with natural light. In addition, a useful exterior space is incorporated into the design – a prominent feature of this space is the clever use of moveable EPIC Metals’ ‘Sun Screen’ panels to modulate direct sunlight while adding visual interest to the façade. The theme/project positioning of the hawker stall was a very nice direct use of one's own observations of the built environment and a broader cultural awareness.

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Honorable Mention: Brody Ploeger, B.Arch ‘25 & Ashley Su, B.Arch ‘25

Title: GCL: Global Community Library

Award: $600

Jury Comment: It was unanimous amongst all jurors that this design is very skillfully executed. A pleasing, straightforward composition almost deceptively makes simple that which is actually an accomplished holistic integration demonstrating big picture modular logic and unified purpose/program, as well as convincing detail components. One of the more evocative visual representations.

First Place: Suzy Li, PhD-BPD candidate

Title: Adopting Smart Community Surfaces is Critical to Climate Change, Human Health, and Social Equity

Award: $2,500

Jury Comment: Suzy’s project develops a taxonomy of urban surfaces that will reduce urban heat and urban flooding and address long standing inequities in cities. It supports city decision making with GIS interfaces to reveal inequities and opportunities and quantifies the human and environmental benefits of new approaches to urban surfaces. The jury especially appreciated the quality of Suzy’s public presentation – beautifully illustrated and very compelling.

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Runner-up: Ariba Asad, MUD ‘23

Title: Choreographing an Informed Return: From Rehabilitation to Recovery

Award: $1,500

Jury Comment: The jury noted that Ariba’s project creates proposals for empowering refugee women to measurably improve the physical conditions for living in flood-prone Pakistan, with compelling and visually wonderful solutions. The work is robustly researched and the conceptual design manual is culturally appropriate and cost reasonable.

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Runners-up: Rachel Ruscigno, M.Arch ‘24 & Autumn Dsouza, M.Arch ‘24

Title: Regenerative Assemblages: A Soil Remediation Network

Award: $1,500

Jury Comment: The jury noted that Rachel and Autumn’s project transforms a community through environmental innovation, developing a cottage industry of soil remediation to elevate brownfields to productive greenfields and empower low income neighborhoods as leaders. The work is thoroughly designed and creatively illustrated. It's also refreshing to see a phased timeline, of 45 years(!), for a studio project.

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Runners-up: Aditi Shreedhar, MUD ‘24 & Aniket Surve, MUD ‘24

Title: FOOD for THOUGHT: A Community Service Hub for South Oakland

Award: $1,500

Jury Comment: Aditi and Aniket’s project transforms an underutilized field in South Oakland into a community catalyst for food production, environmental learning, and play. The work illustrates a high level of attention to detail through site analysis, precedents, community financing, and a 20 year development timeline.

Winner: Priyanka Thakur, M.Arch ‘24

Title: Engaging Voices

Award: $2,500

Jury Comment: The jury recognized Priyanka’s sustained commitment to co-designing and hands-on construction of school and library projects in marginalized tribal communities. The jury was impressed by the combination of simplicity and beauty that arises from Priyanka’s work with communities. The jury hopes the scholarship will encourage Priyanka to continue seeking a sense of place and building community through architecture where resources do not abound.

Winner: Sharon Fung, B.Arch ‘24

Award: $10,000

Jury Comment: Sharon is an impressive emerging professional. Her passion for architecture was evident through her portfolio, academic record, previous professional experience and commitment to service to both the community and the profession, and even more during the (early morning!) interview. The interview, in particular, confirmed the Jurors' sentiment that she is the best candidate for the 2023 Award. Her infectious energy and drive is a strong reminder for established architects that we must create Architecture with the capital A every day. Architects, as Sharon suggests, should mentor, guide, and inspire the communities around them. At the same time, Architects should welcome community feedback and embrace the journey, welcoming design iterations until the right solution is achieved.

Winner: Yonghao Zhang, B.Arch '24

Award: $7,000

Jury Comment: The work is beautifully presented and shows design excellence at its core. It incorporates architectural representation as foundational to the studio design process across scales.

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Winner: Sharon Fung, B.Arch '24

Award: $7,000

Jury Comment: Sharon's work shows a mature balance of technical and spatial competency, and attention to detail through the design studio work she has produced.

Winner: Colin Walters, B.Arch '24

Award: $4,500 

Jury Comment: Colin Walters’ project Addition to City View Apartments in the Lower Hill District of Pittsburgh, developed in collaboration with project members Brian Hartman and Kit Tang, most clearly demonstrates the use of building science explorations coupled with user experience of the spaces to achieve a design resolution. The concerns of building performance coupled with the aesthetic experience are well considered.

Winner: Gabrielle Benson, B.Arch '24

Award: $2,250

Jury Comment: Gabrielle Benson demonstrates a strong commitment to sustainable design that includes doing a minor in Environmental Studies at Dietrich College. Her project submission, an extension wing to City View Apartments in the Lower Hill District of Pittsburgh, done in collaboration with Sharon Fung and Sarah Kwok for the Praxis 3 studio, shows good integration of real estate concepts, sustainability, and structural design. 

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Winner: Anishwar Tirupathur, B.Arch '24

Award: $2,250

Jury Comment: Anishwar Tirupathur’s project for a Farmer’s Market for Hazelwood Green, developed in collaboration with project members Athan Chang and Emma Nilson, takes the position that a strong community focused project is an important ingredient for developing a sustainable design. The project also utilizes low carbon materials and minimal surface gridshell to develop an exciting large span structure. 

Emma Cafiero, Berlin, Germany: Defining and Developing Cities of Asylum to Inform Social Change

Ajay Chovatia, France (Paris, St. Nazaire, Trignac, Bordeaux): “Never Demolish, Always Transform”: Studying the Housing Projects of Lacaton and Vassal

Colin Cusimano, Italy (Bologna, Pesaro, Urbino): Place, Everyday Life, and Architecture’s Agency: Drawing the Social Space of Giancarlo de Carlo

Rovina George, Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Kochi): Crafting Architecture: Tracing encounters between tradition and modernity in Japanese Timber Construction

Joshua Jordan, London, England: Public Housing In London

Priyanka Thakur, Colombia (various sites): Learning from Bamboo tectonics developed by Architect Simon Velez in the context of Colombia

Shayla Thomas, Barcelona, Spain: International Housing Festival (ISHF)

Thomas Vite, Switzerland (Zurich, Basel): Investigating Materiality and Meaning Through the Works of Herzog and de Meuron