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Six emerging firms win 2019 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects & Designers

JUST

Six emerging firms win 2019 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects & Designers

Young New Yorkers, Jennifer Bonner of MALL, and f-architecture, are among the people and firms to receive the 2019 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers. Now in its 38th year, the prestigious program created by the Architecture League of New York selected six emerging talents under the theme of Just, which explores architectural action within the discipline.

The annual portfolio competition is open to designers who are 10 or fewer years out of an undergraduate or master’s degree program and live and work in North America. To submit for the 2019 prize, entrants were challenged to “consider the just in how they approach the practice of architecture,” by detailing their experimental research, design advocacy, or unique techniques and methodologies of practice.

According to the Architectural League, “JUST explores architectural action with the understanding that a multiplicity of coexisting and contradictory attitudes may be constructive, liberating, and justified.” This year’s firms, selected from a jury that included past winners of the prize, will have the opportunity to lecture in New York in late June and showcase their work in an exhibition at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons School of Design/The New School.

Check out the recipients below:

Cyrus Peñarroyo of EXTENTS
Ann Arbor, MI

Peñarroyo and his partner McLain Clutter founded the Ann Arbor–based practice EXTENTS just two years ago and the duo are gaining widespread recognition for their unique use of contemporary digital tools in exhibition design, installations, and research projects. According to the Architectural League, the firm is “interested in architecture, urbanism, media, digital culture, and other instruments of life that can be impacted by design.” Peñarroyo currently serves as an assistant professor of architecture at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where he was the William Muschenheim Fellow in 2015-16. Last month, EXTENTS opened the installation, “Lossy/Lossless” (pictured at top) at Materials & Applications (M&A) in Los Angeles.

Virginia Black, Gabrielle Printz, Rosana Elkhatib of f-architecture
Brooklyn, NY

Rendering of interiors intstallation that's pink and abstract
Cosmo-Clinical Interiors of Beirut by f-architecture (Courtesy f-architecture)

Virginia Black, Gabrielle Printz, and Rosana Elkhatib founded the Brooklyn-based feminist architecture collaborative in 2016. Self-described as “a three-woman architectural research enterprise aimed at disentangling the contemporary spatial politics and technological appearances of bodies, intimately and globally, ” the trio works on temporary installations, exhibitions, and research-based projects. They simultaneously tackle writing, activism, and performance pieces meant to reach a broader audience.

Gregory Melitonov of Taller KEN
New York, Guatemala City, San José, CR

Image of colorful installation with ribbons as canopy
Playa Chomo Design-Built Initiative by Taller KEN (Marcelo Guitterez)

International practice Taller KEN was founded in 2013 by Gregory Melitonov and Inés Guzmán. Based initially in New York and Guatemala City, the duo recently expanded their work to San José, Costa Rica. Their colorful and playful projects, ranging from commercial spaces to public installations and residential habitats, are created with “social and cultural relevance,” according to the architects. Taller KEN’s robust portfolio includes a mid-rise apartment complex with a verdant facade, a 4,500-square-foot café and event space, as well as a prismatic canopy built with recycled elastic ribbons. In 2016, the firm was named one of AIANY’s New Practices New York.

Mira Hasson Henry of Henry Architecture
Los Angeles, CA

Image of a residential street and a photograph imposed on a home
Not White Walls by Mira Henry (Courtesy Mira Henry)

Founded in 2016, Henry Architecture is the personal practice of SCI-Arc design professor Mira Hasson Henry. In her work, she draws on common building elements such as windows, cladding, and eaves to explore social and architectural topics such as inclusion and identity, according to the Architectural League. Additionally, she utilizes different mediums such as models, wallpaper, photographer, and installations to examine various modes of architectural representation. Henry also serves as SCI-Arc’s DID Coordinator.

Jennifer Bonner of MALL
Atlanta, GA

Installation of white gabled house models in warehouse gallery
Domestic Hats by MALL (Courtesy MALL)

A native of Alabama, Bonner began MALL in 2009 when she was working as a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Though she currently lives in Boston and serves as the director of the Master in Architecture II Program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, she’s interested in experimenting and building architecture in the American South. Inspired by her students and the flexibility that comes as an academic practitioner, Bonner uses MALL as a way to explore and invent new ways to represent architecture. Her most recent project, Haus Gables, is a cross-laminated timber structure that hacks the traditional multi-family residential typology and is designed around the gabled roof plan.

Rachel G. Barnard of Young New Yorkers
New York, NY

Photo of installation inside courtroom with art pieces hanging
Wisdom Gift Exchange by Rachel G. Barnard (Mansura Khanam)

Rachel G. Barnard founded Young New Yorkers (YNY) in 2012, a restorative justice project that provides arts-based diversion programs to teens prosecuted as adults by the New York State criminal justice system, as well as young adults up to age 25. By empowering participants to explore their creative side utilizing photography, video, illustration or design, the young defendants also learn skills related to accountability, leadership, responsibility, and choice, among others. Barnard has established partnerships with agencies across New York City and since its inception, Young New Yorkers had successfully graduated over 1000 participants who, by completing the program, are rid of their criminal record, jail time, or other adult criminal justice sanctions.

The League Prize 2019 exhibition will be on view for free from June 21 through July 31.

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