Architecture Student Research Grant Pushes Boundaries THE 2019 ARCHITECTURE STUDENT RESEARCH GRANT (ASRG) exhibition in the Taubman College Gallery featured images of Grenfell Tower and Notre-Dame Cathedral on fire, a series of raised steel domes with a sign encouraging people to step on them, and a row of floor-to-ceiling hair braids. It’s fitting, given that the ASRG calls for projects that push the boundaries and possibilities of the discipline of architecture, including new forms and methods of working, making, and representing.
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’11, M.S. ’14, and Adam Smith, M.Arch ’11 (Synecdoche Design Studio, Ann Arbor), provides a unique opportunity for students to support outstanding research by their peers. The benefits for the recipients are many. “On a personal level, receiving an ASRG was the confidence boost I needed as I am beginning to understand and define my interests within architecture,” says Asya Shine, M.Arch ’20, who received a grant for “Afrotutions.” “Culturally, receiving an ASRG was an opportunity to showcase an underrepresented community within architecture and hopefully create a familiar experience for other students of color at Taubman College.”
“Taubman College is committed to the idea that architecture is a cultural product that always negotiates a complex plurality of voices and ideas, as well as myriad social, political, and aesthetic concerns,” says McLain Clutter, program chair. “The Architecture Student Research Grant is an excellent example of our experimental mindset in action.”
For Sauvé and Smith, providing funding for the ASRG allows them to give students the kind of experience that they found so valuable as they launched their own careers. “Opportunities for small projects with funding were the kickstart to our portfolio. Learning independently and through the act of making simultaneous to designing had a huge impact on our creative process and how we developed an alternative practice path,” they say. “Being able to provide similar opportunities gives students the room to experiment and possibly launch their own practice, product prototype, inaugural publication, or something else. We like to think of it as no-strings-attached seed funding towards creative entrepreneurship.”
The Architecture Student Research Grant, which was seeded with gifts from the Class of 2013 and continues to be funded through the generosity of Lisa Sauvé, M.Arch
The Architecture Student Research Grant winners exhibited their work in the Taubman College Gallery in fall 2019.
SPRING 2020 TAUBMAN COLLEGE
