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).