Fellowship

The RAMSA Fellowship is a $15,000 prize awarded annually by Robert A.M. Stern Architects for travel and research. The fellowship seeks to promote investigations into the perpetuation of tradition through invention—key to the firm’s own work—and is given to an individual who has proven insight and interest in the profession and its future, as well as the ability to carry forth in-depth research.

Fellows complete their travel in the summer and present their research to RAMSA staff the following spring. The fellowship now includes an optional residency program, in addition to the travel and research prize. The program provides fellows with a stipend to fund a two-week-long residency at RAMSA’s office in New York City before or after their travel. During the residency, fellows continue to develop their research project with the support of RAMSA staff and resources.

The fellowship is open to graduate students in the penultimate year of a degree program in architecture or a related discipline at a NAAB-accredited school. Now in its eleventh year, past recipients have traveled to Austria, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and various cities in the United States, where they have studied a wide range of topics.

Congratulations to Neha Garg, recipient of the 2023 RAMSA Fellowship! Neha, a Master of Architecture candidate at Cornell University, will be awarded $15,000 to travel throughout Egypt to study the architectural styles and construction techniques of earthen buildings from salt houses in the Siwa region to mudbrick houses in Aswan.

For more information about the fellowship, read our recently published article “A Discussion About Travel, Research, and the RAMSA Fellowship” on RAMSA Storyboard.

The fellowship is administered by RAMSA Research, email fellowship@ramsa.com with any questions.

Mapping Memory: Linking the Landscape of Sicily’s Tuna Fisheries

Giuliana Vaccarino Gearty traveled to Syracuse, Palermo, and Trapani in Sicily to study the architectural styles and preservation techniques of eight tuna fisheries, known as tonnare. Giuliana’s research will include “a folio of drawings and photographs, accompanied by a written article, exploring how these buildings have changed over time, both physically and symbolically, and the ways in which medieval industrial structures can be utilized and experienced in the present.”

Sourcing Material Transformations: Restoring Riad Domestic Spaces

Daniel Hall traveled to Morocco to study the architecture and traditional crafts of the riad, a distinct housing typology with an interior garden or courtyard. He traced the material productions necessary to rebuild each section of the building—stucco carving, tadelakt plasterwork, zellij ceramic tile production, wood carving, horticulture and aquatic practices, metal workmanship, and fabric production—and will create portraits of each of the seven sites of production at various scales.

Qilou: Where Freedom Takes Shape

Yaxuan Liu will travel along the west coast of Taiwan to analyze and document the historic qilou building type. Qilou, a type of colonnaded shophouse with projecting eaves, are found in the western port cities and towns of Taiwan where they date back to the arrival of merchants from southern China. They create a collective public space balanced with private courtyard living. “Flexibly absorbing political, cultural, and economic forces, evident in plan, section, and decoration, qilou offer a thread of spatial continuity across time—a place where Taiwanese people formed distinct cultural customs and traditions that flourish to this day. Thanks to their adaptability, qilou have become a living embodiment of Taiwan's free-spirited culture, filled with the color and chaos of urban life as shopkeepers and residents make each arcade their own.”

Orthodox Sacred Space in the Rural Imagination

Radu-Remus Macovei traveled to the Carpathian Mountains to document and catalogue the region's Christian wooden churches. The churches were constructed between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries in response to the Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire's prohibition on masonry construction for Christian churches. “These inventive wooden churches have received very little academic attention to date," explained Macovei. "Given the soft, monumental massing of their curvilinear shingled roofs, which impress with their sheer size and height, the architectural experience is not limited to the building itself but responds to the physical features of the surrounding mountainous landscape."

Rooted Future: Resurfacing Lost Identity

Wilson Harkhono traveled to Indonesia where he catalogued and analyzed the diverse vocabularies of the country's traditional homes—the Rumah Adat. The jurors were persuaded by the geographic focus of the proposal and the clarity of its intent. His proposal “to learn from traditions that have been suppressed and nearly lost speaks to the mission of the fellowship,” said the jury.

Alpine Modernism: Sensitive Identities and Regional Placemaking

Kyle Schumann traveled to Austria, Slovenia, and Italy, where he studied the work of architect Edoardo Gellner, Jože Plečnik, Edvard Ravnikar, and Otto Wagner. Examining the ways in which these architects engaged with “complex and often conflicting cultural histories, coupled with the challenging geography and climate of the Alpine region,” Schumann argued “necessitated an architecture intricately sensitive to material, cultural, and programmatic contexts.”

Thomson and Wright

Gerald Bauer traveled to Milwaukee, Chicago, and Glasgow, Scotland, where he studied the work of Alexander “Greek” Thomson and Frank Lloyd Wright. “Despite being born at opposite ends of the 19th century,” Bauer wrote in his submission, “and with no evidence of communication in their lifetimes, Thomson’s Greek Revivalism and Wright’s early Prairie Style bear striking resemblances . . . as two strains of an analogous logic which sought an appropriate expression of modernity rooted in historical precedent.”

The Myth of Pure Form

Michelle Chen traveled to India, where she studied the architectural shift from a diverse fabric of expressive design languages to a politically and ethnically neutral vocabulary. “In our world of increasingly ubiquitous gleaming towers, clean in form but cleansed of details, looking to centuries-old traditions might be a means toward reestablishing human attachment to our everyday surroundings,” says Chen. Her research included drawings that attempt to “chart a path to a more balanced architecture – one which does not forsake cultural expression for a shallow conception of political order.”

Japanese Wood Culture

Anna Antropova traveled to Japan, where she studied ancient wood joinery techniques. Her research was driven by the potential transformation and application of ancient timber techniques to modern construction: “This elegant and efficient mode of construction could meaningfully inform our western building industry, an industry addicted to toxic adhesives and an indiscriminate application of metal fasteners. Wood stands to be for our generation what steel and concrete were for the previous two or three, and Japanese joinery offers us a sustainable mode of assembly for a sustainable material with far less embodied energy.”

Catenary Vaulting on Mfangano Island

Jonathan Dessi-Olive traveled to Kenya, to introduce timbrel vaulting – a traditional clay building system – to craftsman on the island of Mfangano. He proposed locally-manufactured clay tiles as a sustainable solution to the ecological burden of vernacular wooden architecture in a context of rapid deforestation. Collaborating closely with local craftsman, the result of this nine-week collaboration was a small structure, Ekialo Kiona Radio Studio, constructed entirely of timbrel vaults and envisioned as Africa’s first wind/solar-powered radio station.

2022 Runner-up – Qiuyi Bian, Harvard University

Woven Wooden Bridge: Chinese Floating Shrine

 

2022 Finalist – Cesar Delgado, Columbia University

Strengthened by Collective Care: The Fujian Tulou

 

2022 Finalist – Zach Felder, Yale University

Architecture for the Artist: Rural American Artist Communities