Announcing the 2017 Chicago Student Awards in Architecture

11.13.2017

The Chicago Award in Architecture is a juried competition for student projects. Recognition is given, at the jury's discretion, for First, Second, and Third Place and for Honorable Mentions. The project awarded First Place is honored with the Benn-Johnck Award, in the amount of $500, Second Place is awarded $300, and Third Place is awarded $200. This year’s winning projects are:

First Place: Veiled Museum by James Worker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

“This project deals with the planning and detailed design of a new building intended to house a regional art museum of Wisconsin art on Milwaukee’s Lakefront: The Museum of Wisconsin Art Milwaukee (MWAM). In 2000, the Milwaukee Art Museum made the decision to cease collecting and exhibiting local and regional artists. This decision left a serious void in the art scene in Milwaukee. The goal of this project is to fill that void and provide a facility which will collect and exhibit the best artwork executed in the region, and will provide a focus for the art community of the city.”

Second Place: Resilient School for Migrant Population BY DERAR ALCHIKH IBRAHIM, SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO 

This student designed a portable school structure for refugee children “that can provide safe spaces and protection from risk, fear, stress and violence.

“Focusing on the largest displacement camp at the border of Turkey and Syria, Educating for Displaced Populations works to ameliorate the miserable conditions of children and adults who skipped school and job transitioning and lost their rights of learning.” 

Third Place: Stepped Library by Il Hwan Kim and natalia struk, Illinois Institute of Technology

“The project develops a large horizontal building for the temporary custody of a vast repository of books. Under the assumption that following a total takeover of digital data, important human knowledge carefully printed on precious volumes will be turned into a collection of rare items (almost with the status of a work of art).

“The terrain of books provides a freedom of wandering among books. The visitor may access any point of the space through innumerable ways, and therefore her experience of approaching can always be different.”

The Honorable Mention went to Sara Pena and Rosario Lorenis at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for their project, "Breaking the Cycle."