Wheelwright Prize Deadline Is Tomorrow

The deadline for registration for the 2014 Wheelwright Prize is tomorrow, February 15. The prize from the Harvard GSD is "a $100,000 traveling fellowship open to talented early-career architects worldwide proposing exceptional itineraries for research and discovery." Last year's winner – the first prize that looked outside of the GSD – was Brooklyn-based architect Gia Wolff.



Some general information from the Wheelright Prize website:

The Wheelwright Prize is a $100,000 travel-based research grant that is awarded annually to early-career architects who have demonstrated exceptional design talent, produced work of scholarly and professional merit, and who show promise for continued creative work.

Throughout its history, Harvard GSD has had a strong global outlook, attracting deans, faculty, and students from all over the world. Moreover, a mainstay of the GSD curriculum is its traveling studio, which emphasizes the acceptance of ideas and practices with a diversity of origins. The Wheelwright Prize extends the school’s ethos, encouraging a broad-minded approach to architecture that seeks inspiration from unexpected quarters.

The Wheelwright Prize is intended to spur innovative research during the early stage of an architect's professional career. Now open to applicants from all over the world—no affiliation to Harvard GSD required—the prize aims to foster new forms of research informed by cross-cultural engagement. "The idea is not just about travel—the act of going and seeing the world—but it is about binding the idea of geography to themes and issues that hold great potential relevance to contemporary practice," says Harvard GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi.

The winner will be selected via an open call for proposals and a rigorous review process. The winner of the Wheelwright Prize will receive:

• $100,000 cash prize to support travel and research-related costs
• invitation to lecture at Harvard GSD
• possibility to publish research in a Harvard GSD publication

The Wheelwright Prize organizing committee includes Harvard GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Professors K. Michael Hays and Jorge Silvetti, and Assistant Dean Benjamin Prosky.