2017 Saarinen Swanson Essay Competition Winners
Established in 1994, the Saarinen Swanson Essay Competition Writing Fund at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning encourages strong writing as a medium to foster critical thinking and exposition among future professionals in architecture and planning.
Top Honors and an award of $2000 each was awarded to three essays:
- Sophie Jantz (M.U.P.), The City is Built: The Politics of Informality
- Scott Deisher (M.Arch), Swagger From the Front: Crisis and Criticism since 1980
- Ali AlYousefi (M.Arch), An Architecture of Tasks
Honorable mention and an award of $500 each was awarded to two students:
- Christopher Campbell (M.Arch), A New Era: Le Corbusier and the Revolution at Ronchamp
- Xin En Theresa Chua (M.Arch), The Burden of the Thing: Notes on CMYK Obsessions
The competition guidelines asked for 1000-1500 word essays addressing contemporary critical discourse in design and/or urbanism.
This year the essays were judged by the following Taubman College faculty: Kit McCullough (Architecture); Julie Steiff (Urban Planning); Craig Wilkins (Architecture).