The Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designer: It’s Different

Competition Deadline
February 11, 2011

Jury
Michael Manfredi
Thom Mayne
Hilary Sample
Annabelle Selldorf
Ken Smith

and the Young Architects and Designers Committee
Lonn Combs
Phu Hoang
Aleksandr Mergold

Architectural League Program Director
Anne Rieselbach

Call for Entries
Young architects and designers are invited to submit work to the annual Architectural League Prize competition. Projects of all types, either theoretical or real and executed in any medium, are welcome. The jury will select work for presentation in public fora, an on-line installation, podcasts, and in an exhibition in late spring 2011. Winners will receive a cash prize of $1,000, as well as an additional stipend for travel and exhibit installation determined at set levels based on the applicant’s proximity to New York. A catalogue of winning work will be published by the Architectural League and Princeton Architectural Press. The Architectural League Prize is an annual competition, series of lectures, and exhibition organized by the Architectural League and its Young Architects & Designers Committee. The Prize (formerly known as the Young Architects Forum) was established to recognize specific works of high quality and to encourage the exchange of ideas among young people
who might otherwise not have a forum. For more information about past winners, please visit www.archleague.org.

Theme: It’s Different
Every generation thinks it is special, new, and different—and ours is no exception. What perhaps may make the claim stronger for the current generation are the circumstances: global networking and integration, and global economic and security crises; environmental activism and environmental catastrophe; virtual revolution and physical stagnation. Against these challenges and in light of the fundamental ruptures of the Great Recession, the committee posits that the future will operate on a wholly different paradigm. This difference will require architects and the discipline to practice architecture and design without preconceptions and assumptions, rethinking how designers engage constructively with our cities, our environments, and our societies. Not content to wait for the hoped-for return of economic conditions favorable to conventional ideas about architectural practice, architects must ask: What is the new role of the designer?

The Call for Entries addresses the state of architecture as a reflection of our world: it’s different now. The committee seeks projects and design approaches that provide new strategies to address existing or entrenched problems, proactive definitions of practice, and a rethinking of the design discipline in relation to new economic, political, social, and cultural paradigms. Things are, after all, different out there.

Eligibility
Entrants must submit as individuals or as a group of individuals. If the individual(s) is/are the sole principal(s) of a firm, the firm name will be listed as a winner as well. Entrants must submit work done independently; no work done as an employee of a firm, where the entrant is not a principal or partner, is eligible for submission. Entrants must be within ten years of graduation of either an undergraduate or graduate degree. Students undertaking advanced studies beyond a first professional degree are eligible to apply; however, no student work completed for any academic program or degree is eligible for submission. Educators may not include work done in their studios or for their teaching. Past Young Architects Forum winners are ineligible. If only one partner of a firm is eligible, he or she can enter as a single entrant. He or she must include a signed document from all other partners outlining the collaborative nature of the work and the firm will not be listed as
a recipient of the Prize. Collaborative work between unrelated firms or individuals is eligible if the partnership is equal and any project with collaborators must include a signed document from the other collaborator(s) outlining the collaborative nature of the work. Collaborative work will be considered within the context of an individual’s complete portfolio.

The competition is open to residents, who need not be citizens, of the United States, Canada, and Mexico only—residency must be met six out of the twelve months preceding the portfolio deadline. There is no restriction on where submitted projects, speculative or built, are located.

Entry forms
Each submission must include an entry form. Insert form, intact, into an unsealed envelope attached to the inside back cover of the submission. To maintain anonymity, no identification of the entrant may appear on any part of the submission, except on the entry form and return envelope (see below). For forms, visit www.archleague.org.

Competition Deadline
February 11, 2011
Entries must be received at the League office by 5 p.m. or postmarked by that date. There will be no exceptions to this deadline. The League cannot be responsible for entries received by mail after the jury date, which will be approximately a week after the deadline.

Submission requirements
The competition theme is given as a basis for young architects and designers to reflect upon and reevaluate their work. A written statement not to exceed 250 words is requested, which defines and considers the work under the rubric of the competition theme. Significant weight is given to how an applicant’s work addresses the theme.

A single portfolio, which may include several projects, must be bound and no larger than 11″ x 14″. The portfolio may not contain more than thirty double-sided pages. CDs, models, slides, and transparencies will not be accepted. Entries must be received at the League office by 5 p.m. February 11, 2011 or postmarked by that date.

The Architectural League
of New York
594 Broadway, Suite 607
New York, New York 10012

Entry fee
Each entrant must submit an entry fee of $25. Entrants may submit cash or a check payable to “The Architectural League of New York.”

Portfolio return
Portfolios will be returned by mail only if a self-addressed envelope with postage is also enclosed. Please ensure that return postage does not expire before August 2011. The Architectural League assumes no liability for original drawings. The League will take every precaution to return submissions intact, but can assume no responsibility for loss or damage. Portfolios may be discarded after one year if no return envelope is provided.

Questions
For more information, email [email protected] or call 212.753.1722 x13. To download a copy of The Architectural League Prize call for entries visit www.archleague.org.

Selection
Winning entrants will be notified by mid-March 2011.

Sponsors
The Architectural League prize sponsors include Dornbracht, Ibex Construction, Susan Grant Lewin Associates, and Tischler und Sohn.

League programs are made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.