Students from John Enright’s Fall Vertical Studio Win Competition Prizes

Several students in SCI-Arc Vice Director John Enright’s fall vertical studio have been recognized for their outstanding work from two different architecture competitions. This fall, students in Enright’s vertical studio entitled Competition X3 spent the semester creating project proposals to submit to three separate competitions. This past month the Home Competition and international architecture competition Paris Affordable Housing Challenge announced their winners and honorable mention recipients.

The SCI-Arc students recognized by the Home Competition were Blake Minster (M.Arch 2), 1^st Honorable Mention; Dutra Brown (B.Arch), 2^nd Honorable Mention; Haozhou Zeng​ (M.Arch 1), Director’s Choice; and in the Adaptability Award Category Navid Simanian (B.Arch), Honorable Mention. Dutra Brown also received 1^st Prize in the Home Competition with a project done outside the school.

The Paris Affordable Housing Challenge acknowledged Neno Videnovic (B. Arch), 1^st Prize and Student Award Winner; and Lorenco Paz Pinto (M.Arch 2), 2^nd Prize Winner. Shortlisted projects included those of Haozhou Zeng​ (M.Arch 1), Navid Simanian (B.Arch), Pei-Shin (Phoebe) Ou-Yang (B.Arch), Blake Minster (M.Arch 2), and Dutra Brown (B.Arch).

This studio was designed to take on the topic of the architectural competition as a starting point to develop architectural strategies that span scale, location, and program. To accomplish this, the studio submitted in three actual competitions, all five weeks each. Studio discussions focused on the value of architectural competitions, and various strategies to approach them. Along the way students were challenged to bridge their work across the three competitions, and thereby see the three as related, progressive investigations of their own work.

The three-part project breakdown of the semester was meant to be viewed as an advantage, allowing students the ability to retool, redirect, and redo earlier versions of form, strategy, and approach; thus pedagogically questioning the typical 15-week, singular project semester structure.

Injecting a sense of criticality about the role that competitions play in the progression of an architect’s career into the vertical studio brief itself, Enright understands that there are different ways students can interpret the work involved, and the desirability to compete.

“Students should be starting to develop a trajectory in their work, closer to how they will be as a mature architect,” says Enright of the aim of the competition studio. “What I'm trying to get them to do is to develop that and also to be smart about it. I hope that they learn that it's about strategy.”

The first two five-week competitions involved the typology of the house, the former decidedly conceptual in its brief, the latter as the more pragmatic, involving affordable housing in Paris. The third and final competition, involved a “responsive” architectural proposal, entitled Architecture that Reacts, sponsored by Laka.

Complete list of competition awards below:

The HOME Competition (submitted October 2019)

1^st Honorable Mention: Blake Minster (M.Arch 2)
2^nd Honorable Mention: Dutra Brown (B.Arch)
Director’s Choice: Haozhou Zeng​ (M.Arch 1)
1^st Prize: Dutra Brown

Adaptability Award Category
Honorable Mention: Navid Simanian (B.Arch)

Paris Affordable Housing Competition (Submitted November 2019)

1^st Prize Winner + BB Student Award: Neno Videnovic (B. Arch)
2^nd Prize Winner: Lorenco Paz Pinto (M.Arch 2)
Shortlisted Projects: Haozhou Zeng​ (M.Arch 1), Navid Simanian (B. Arch), Pei-Shin (Phoebe) Ou-Yang (B. Arch), Blake Minster (M.Arch 2), Dutra Brown (B. Arch)

Laka Competition 20’ – Architecture that Reacts

Submission December 2019 - Competition results announced February 1, 2020