The RAMSA Prize will resume promoting travel with a $4,000 grant awarded to office staff to fund a one-week-long research and travel fellowship exploring a location’s sense of place. Proposals can include either research or design projects within the United States and may focus on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to regional traditions, public health, civic engagement, or housing equity. Fellows will complete their travel in the spring following the announcement of the award, and develop either a presentation or an article for RAMSA Storyboard.
Now in its sixth year, the RAMSA Prize is awarded annually by the partners of Robert A.M. Stern Architects to design staff to engage in targeted, in-depth research into a city, town, or place, in a way that can meaningfully inform design work. In addition, the prize allows staff to pursue personal interests as an extension of the firm’s research-based design principles.
The prize is administered by RAMSA Research. Email prize@ramsa.com with any questions.
Renaissance: Architecture and Placemaking in Central Harlem
Amanda Iglesias and Christopher Tritt studied Harlem landmarks to better understand the challenges and triumphs of Black placemaking in the United States. Their research included a week-long series of walks through Harlem focusing on three interconnected themes for the buildings: religion, culture, and people.
Argentina Between the Wars: Housing as Style, Not Typology
Justin Lai and Ron Ostezan traveled to the Argentine cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Mar del Plata to study the architectural styles of residential buildings completed between 1920 and 1940.
Governed by Hierarchy: Japan’s Samurai Districts
Brenna Decker and Caitlin B. Getman traveled throughout southern Japan to catalogue and analyze six preserved samurai districts.
Harmony of the Whole: Cities Beautiful in 20th Century India
Kristen Gates and Thomas Nye’s research focused on Sir Edwin Lutyens’s early 20th-century work for Imperial New Delhi and Le Corbusier’s mid-20th-century designs for Chandigarh—two chronologically and geographically adjacent examples of an architect developing the master plan for a new city and designing everything from public and institutional buildings, monuments, residences, down to the scale of furniture.
“Just” Housing: Dutch Social Housing from 1915–1930
Robert Cannavino and Mark Santrach’s research focused on early-20th-century social housing in Amsterdam that originated from the National Housing Act of 1902. The completion of entire neighborhoods during a small window of time between the First and Second World Wars aimed to combat the increasing overpopulation and deterioration of the city, and would promote the planning, funding, and standardization of Dutch housing for decades. “The Dutch created rich urban fabrics with just social housing,” wrote Cannavino and Santrach. “Despite lacking grand civic buildings and the benefit of incremental growth, the new neighborhoods espoused a clear hierarchy of forms, a rich network of public spaces, and a degree of picturesque monumentality.”
Understanding Regionalism: The Creation of Place in the Spanish Colonies
Robert Moldafsky and Javier Perez traveled to cities in central Mexico and port cities in the Caribbean and Central America to study Spanish Colonial architecture. Each location was selected for its unique climate, local materials, and regional differences. Moldafsky and Perez studied “how these sets of stimuli created new variations in Spanish architectural character across New Spain.”
