The Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Design Excellence endowment was established in the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley to promote architecture as a social art through research, writing, and criticism: traditionally under-represented aspects of the architecture curriculum. Each year, the Prize Committee selects a topic important to the understanding of the interaction of people and the built world that becomes the focus of the Essay Competition. This year the topic is: Competing to Serve.

The Committee poses a Question on the competition website related to the topic. Students enrolled in any undergraduate architecture program throughout the world are invited to submit a 500-word essay proposal responding to the Question. Undergraduate architecture students may team up with undergraduates from Allied Arts and Social Sciences programs.

From the pool of essay proposals received, approximately 25 are selected by the Prize Committee as particularly promising. The 25 selected individual students, or student teams, become Semifinalists

These Semifinalists are invited to submit a 2,500-word essay expanding on their proposals. A group of readers, composed of Committee members and invited colleagues, selects five-to-eight of the best essays and sends these Finalist essays to a jury of international academics and architects to select the winners.

To celebrate the Tenth anniversary of THE BERKELEY PRIZE, we are this year sponsoring a third competition: The BERKELEY PRIZE Social Art of Architecture Design Competition. As an added incentive, not only will the top Semi Finalists be invited to compete for the 2008 BERKELEY PRIZE Travel Fellowship (to be announced soon), but, in addition, one school represented by one of the Semi Finalists will be offered the opportunity to actually hold the proposed competition. You the student will decide what the Competition shall be and how it might be implemented. The BERKELEY PRIZE Endowment will give the chosen school additional prize money to encourage students to compete in the selected Social Art of Architecture Design Competition. Details for the Design Competition will be announced in the Spring, 2008.

Architectural history, theory and practice are rich with ideas and actual buildings that exemplify the importance of architecture as a social art. In addressing the Question posed by the BERKELEY PRIZE 2008 Essay Competition, you will consider this legacy and its relevance to you as future architects.

More Information:
http://www.berkeleyprize.org