The Architectural League of New York has announced the 2023 recipients of its annual Emerging Voices award.
Since 1982, Emerging Voices has spotlighted as its name suggests, emerging practices or individuals doing work within the design and architecture field. The invited, juried portfolio competition is awarded annually to eight United States, Mexico, and Canada practices or practitioners with “distinct design voices and the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design, and urbanism,” according to The Architectural League.
“The works of this year’s Emerging Voices winners exhibit architecture’s ability to work across the various scales of the built environment in the production of community, sociality, space, and discourse,” Mario Gooden, jury member and president of The Architectural League said in a statement. “The works challenge the discipline and the profession of architecture to confront architectural practices, histories, and their entanglements with social, environmental, and technological changes along with the ways these are revealed in the intersection of bodies, space, ecologies, politics, and aesthetics.”
In its 40 plus years the award has been bestowed to over 300 firms and individuals. Among the past recipients are Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi (1983), Toshiko Mori (1992), James Corner (2001), Eric Höweler & Meejin Yoon (2007), Tatiana Bilbao (2010), Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg (2013), and Chris Leong and Dominic Leong (2017). Last year’s roster comprised individuals from MIT Future Heritage Lab, Borderless Studio, Estudio MMX, Felecia Davis Studio, JA Architecture Studio, Landing Studio, sekou cooke STUDIO, and Tsz Yan Ng Design.
As in year’s past, the eight selected firms for the 2023 iteration span North America with practices from Raleigh, North Carolina; Oakland, California; Mexico City, and other locations. The assembled jury reviewed the recipient’s portfolio of completed projects in addition to their contributions to the public realm and design and academic communities. This year’s jury members included several past Emerging Voices recipients, among the esteemed panel of judges were Marie Law Adams (2022), Fernanda Canales (2018), Stephanie Davidson (2018), Mario Gooden (2001), Zach Mortice, Marc Neveu, Rashida Ng, Chelina Odbert (2021), and Nader Tehrani (2003).
“The amount of outstanding work was inspiring and made us take the discussions far from issues related to materials, shapes, and even buildings, and rather related to the communities, the environment, exhibition spaces, books, pedagogies,” jury member, architect, and previous Emerging Voices recipient Fernanda Canales told AN. “It is a pleasure seeing how architectural discussions are shifting and how young practices are opening new paths.”
“This year’s Emerging Voices recipients represent the enduring capacity for architecture to operate at a broad range of scales. Several of the awardees also reinforce the importance of meaningful community engagement as a part of the design process,” added jury member Rashida Ng, undergraduate architecture chair at the University of Pennsylvania. “I have noticed a shift towards more socially responsive approaches to design, driven by a recognition of the interdependence between people and the environment and the need to create a more equitable world.”
Janette Kim
All of the Above and Urban Works Agency | Oakland
Janette Kim is an architectural designer, researcher, and educator based in the San Francisco Bay area. Kim’s practice operates in three modes: as principal of the design firm All of the Above, as co-director of the research laboratory Urban Works Agency at the California College of the Arts, and as an independent scholar and author. Across these roles, she promotes equitable design protocols and creates multimedia decision-making tools to help translate between architecture and its stakeholders. In her own words, Kim aims to “empower communities to realize a more equitable redistribution of land, resources, and risk.”
Asa Highsmith
Common Works Architects | Oklahoma City
Asa Highsmith founded Common Works Architects in Oklahoma City in 2015. The architecture and design firm operates almost exclusively within its local context, designing with and against Oklahoma City’s often-elusive vernacular. Through its familiar material palette and accessible architectural language, Common Works is dedicated to “democratizing design and elevating that which is common,” in Highsmith’s words. The firm’s projects range in program and scale, from residences to restaurants to public spaces, but share a refined simplicity and compositional restraint.
Tom Carruthers, Jennifer Newsom
Dream The Combine | Minneapolis; Ithaca, New York
Tom Carruthers and Jennifer Newsom founded Dream The Combine in Minneapolis in 2013. Working at the intersection of art and architecture, the practice designs site-specific installations in public space. Carruthers’ and Newsom’s large-scale installations use industrial materials like steel, glass, and construction textiles to form, in their words, “perceptual frameworks for vision and movement that complicate the relationship between body, space, and image.” Located in galleries, downtown streets, and public parks, these installations aim to spur chance encounters and embrace shifting interpretations.
Katherine Hogan, Vincent Petrarca
Katherine Hogan Architects | Raleigh
Katherine Hogan and Vincent Petrarca are the principals and owners of Katherine Hogan Architects, an architecture practice based in Raleigh, North Carolina. When the firm was first founded in 2003 (under the name of Tonic Design | Tonic Construction), its work focused on small design–build commercial and residential projects. As it has grown, its portfolio has broadened to include projects for public schools, universities, state parks, and nonprofits. Often the product of modest but impactful interventions, the practice’s designs reflect the principals’ “unyielding explorations into assembly, tectonic craft, and resourcefulness,” in the words of the firm.
Isabel Abascal, Alessandro Arienzo
LANZA Atelier | Mexico City
Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo founded LANZA Atelier in Mexico City in 2015. Initially oriented toward exhibition design, the practice’s portfolio has since expanded to include private residential and commercial projects, along with several public commissions. Ranging from research and teaching to furniture design to buildings, LANZA’s work expresses an inventiveness, a sensitivity to context, and a compositional refinement that spans scales and forms. In the words of its founders, the practice aims “to find and contribute to the beauty of the world.”
Nahyun Hwang, David Eugin Moon
N H D M Architects | New York City
Nahyun Hwang and David Eugin Moon founded N H D M Architects in New York City in 2010. Operating at the intersection of architecture and urbanism, the collaborative design and research practice “aims to explore some of the most critical inquiries of our times through the rigorous investigation of, and provocative propositions in, the built environment,” in its own words. Through built work and speculative research, the practice explores a wide range of topics, including immigrant and migrant spaces, emerging residential typologies, environmental justice, and adaptive reuse and reprogramming.
Adriana Chávez, Victor Rico, Elena Tudela
ORU – Oficina de Resiliencia Urbana | Mexico City, New York City
Adriana Chávez, Victor Rico, and Elena Tudela founded ORU – Oficina de Resiliencia Urbana in Mexico City in 2018. Working across the academic, public, and private sectors, the practice advocates for “scaled-up architectural thinking to foster new futures of interconnected urban regions, strengthened ecological structures, and resilient human and non-human communities,” in its own words. With a profound sensitivity to each project’s environmental and social context, ORU produces a broad spectrum of work, from regional analyses and strategic plans to landscapes, buildings, and exhibitions.
David Godshall, Jenny Jones, Alain Peauroi, Story Wiggins
TERREMOTO | Los Angeles, San Francisco
David Godshall and Alain Peauroi founded the landscape architecture design studio TERREMOTO in 2013. Three years later, they were joined by partners Jenny Jones and Story Wiggins. With offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the TERREMOTO team creates, in its own words, “well-built, site-specific landscapes that respond to client needs while simultaneously challenging historical and contemporary landscape construction methods, materials, and formal conventions.” Ranging from residential gardens to public parks, the practice’s work reflects a playful, sensitive, and selfcritical approach to landscape design.
The League’s latest Emerging Voices will share their work online next month. All lectures will begin at 6:30 p.m. ET. While advance registration is required, all Emerging Voices programs are free and open to all. The schedule for these presentations is as follows:
Thursday, March 9
Asa Highsmith
Common Works Architects
Oklahoma City
Katherine Hogan, Vincent Petrarca
Katherine Hogan Architects
Raleigh
Moderated by Marie Law Adams
Thursday, March 16
Tom Carruthers, Jennifer Newsom
Dream The Combine
Minneapolis/Ithaca
Isabel Abascal, Alessandro Arienzo
LANZA Atelier
Mexico City
Moderated by Mario Gooden
Thursday, March 23
Janette Kim
All of the Above and Urban Works Agency
Oakland
Nahyun Hwang, David Eugin Moon
N H D M Architects
New York City
Moderated by Marc Neveu
Thursday, March 30
Adriana Chávez, Victor Rico, Elena Tudela
ORU – Oficina de Resiliencia Urbana
Mexico City/New York City
David Godshall, Jenny Jones, Alain Peauroi, Story Wiggins
TERREMOTO
Los Angeles / San Francisco
Moderated by Fernanda Canales and Zach Mortice
For more information, visit The Architectural League’s website.
