Sep 1st 2022

MCHAP ANNOUNCES FINALIST PROJECTS BY EMERGING PRACTICES

MIES CROWN HALL AMERICAS PRIZE ANNOUNCES FINALIST PROJECTS BY EMERGING PRACTICES

Four Finalist Projects to be Celebrated on 20 September and 21 September at MCHAP.emerge in Chicago

CHICAGO, IL (1 September 2022) – The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) announces four finalist projects by emerging practices across the Americas for MCHAP.emerge 2022. The 2022 jury found extreme diversity across the nominated set of 50 projects by emerging practices. This diversity is a result of projects which respond to their local conditions and offer lessons for a whole continent. Different contexts produce different values, provide specific materials and processes, and produce very diverse projects.

The MCHAP.emerge 2022 Finalists are:

8 Houses | Estudio Mola | Castelar, Argentina

Alcántara Housing Ensemble | Izquierdo Lehmann | Las Condes, Chile

Big House, Otica | Semillas | Rio Tambo, Peru

Colosio Embankment Dam | Taller Capital | Nogales, Mexico

A conversation The Meeting on Emerging Practice with the four MCHAP.emerge 2022 finalists will be held in person at Mies van der Rohe’s S.R. Crown Hall on Illinois Institute of Technology's historic campus on Tuesday 20 September from 1:00 – 5:00pm CST. The finalists will represent countries across North and South America and the conversation will focus on the interests and nuances of their emerging practices. Sandra Barclay, the chair of the jury, will preside over the conversation. This event will be presented with Architectural Record, the official media partner of the MCHAP. Livestream is available here.

Free and open to the public. AIA CEU credits available.

Register at www.mchap.co/.

MCHAP.emerge award dinner will be held at Mies van der Rohe’s S.R. Crown Hall on Wednesday 21 September from 6:30 – 9:00pm CST. Four finalists winner projects will be presented by their designers and the winner of MCHAP.emerge 2022 will be announced.

Tickets available at www.mchap.co/.

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MCHAP 2022

The fourth prize cycle considers built works completed in the Americas between January 2018 to December 2021. The MCHAP 2022 jury is composed of Jury Chair Sandra Barclay (Lima, Peru), Founding Partner of Barclay & Crousse Architecture and Professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Mónica Bertolino (Córdoba, Argentina), Owner of Estudio Bertolino-Barrado and Professor at the School of Architecture, Urbanism, and Design at Córdoba National University; Alejandro Echeverri (Medellin, Colombia), Director of URBAM Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Ambientales, Owner of Alejandro Echeverri + Valencia Architects, and Distinguished Professor at TEC de Monterrey; Julie Eizenberg, FAIA (Santa Monica, USA), Founding Principal of Koenig Eizenberg Architects; Philip Kafka (Detroit, USA), President of Prince Concepts; and MCHAP Director Dirk Denison (Chicago, USA), Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture, ex officio.

The winner of the MCHAP.emerge prize will be announced on September 21, 2022 and the MCHAP main prize winner will be announced in April 2023. Both events will be held at an award ceremony in Chicago at S.R. Crown Hall, bringing together nominated architects, their teams and clients, and students and faculty into conversation on IIT’s historic Mies Campus.

Restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic forced a two-year suspension of the biennial prize, but created an opportunity to assess its impact and reaffirm its agenda: to learn from architectural excellence that enriches lives. For this cycle jury criteria have been refined, and include consideration of how projects integrate natural, built, and human ecologies; create safe and new public spaces; engage communities as agents of change; use local workforces and materials; improve life in challenged communities; and more. The prize’s territory, the thirty-five countries of the Americas, includes a range of diverse, dynamic conditions that architecture must engage today. “MCHAP reinforces a unique North–South axis that creates potential for urgently needed cross-cultural learning at a moment of global change and crisis,” said MCHAP Director Dirk Denison.

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ABOUT MCHAP and MCHAP.emerge

The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) is a biennial prize that acknowledges excellence in built works of architecture in the Americas. The MCHAP Prize for Emerging Practice (MCHAP.emerge) is a corresponding acknowledgment of the best built work in the Americas authored by a practice in its first ten years of operation. MCHAP was conceived by the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology in 2013. Beyond simply identifying exceptional works, MCHAP brings nominators, jury members, students, faculty, practitioners and clients into an essential dialogue about what architecture makes possible. The result is a rich array of outputs: engaging events and symposia, inventive studios and workshops, and sophisticated, globally recognized publications.

Website: www.mchap.co/

Instagram: @miescrownhallamericasprize

MCHAP is currently in its fourth awards cycle, recognizing built works of architecture completed between January 2018 to December 2021. See the press release of the latest awards cycle here.