At a ceremony in Medellin, Colombia, the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize jury revealed the six finalists for the 2023 MCHAP Award competition. This award recognizes work carried out in the Americas between December 2018 and June 2021. Thirty-nine proposals were presented in June of 2022, and the finalists were chosen from them.
©Rafael Gamo / Onnis Luque
MCHAP jury member Dirk Denison stated, “We knew coming into this journey that we would be examining projects that highlight the importance of a basic notion, but one that is so vital right now: accomplishing more with less.” The winning initiatives display a profound generosity, providing so much to their communities via the most focused interventions.”
The Six Finalists for the 2023 MCHAP Award
1) Guadalupe Market / Colectivo C733
Tapachula, Mexico
©Zaickz Moz
Strategic actions linking the spatial organization with efficient structural systems and economical construction systems, use of local materials according to the context, in a constant dialogue with the landscape, foliage, and open spaces are at the center of the design strategies that aim to improve the quality of space and the conditions of use in Mercado Guadalupe.
2) The Polygon Gallery / Patkau Architects
North Vancouver, Canada
©James Dow /Ema Peter, and Robert Stefanowicz
The Presentation House Gallery, a North Vancouver institution dedicated to photography and media for over four decades, has been reborn as the Polygon Gallery. The new 22,600-square-foot building is more of a site-maker than a site responder since it is located on the frontier of urban waterfront revitalization. In this area, infrastructure is being rethought, and culture is emerging from an industrialized heritage.
3) Anahuacalli Museum, remodeling, and expansion / Taller |Mauricio Rocha
Mexico City, Mexico
©Rafael Gamo / Onnis Luque
A nuanced interaction with the museum, which is already located in the ecological reserve, creates a new public space that expands on Diego Rivera’s vision for the location.
4) Valois Housing Building / Jose Cubilla
Asuncion, Paraguay
©Luis Ayala
The building is authentic and straightforward, and it makes use of rammed earth as its primary foundation. The plan suggests using this building method in an urban setting, which is more often associated with regional or vernacular settings. The design puts up new options for dwelling, gaining an awareness of the climatic complexity of the sub-tropics and paying attention to particular important socio-cultural traits.
5) The Menil Drawing Institute / Johnston Marklee
The Menil Collection, Houston ©Richard Barnes / Paul Hester / Iwan Baan
The Menil Drawing Institute is the first independently operating museum in the country specializing in the display, analysis, and preservation of works on paper. The MDI is a tribute to the neighborhood’s history of personal interaction and close observation of art.
Located in a park-like area, the new structure has a low, stretched silhouette that complements the old campus and the bungalows of the adjacent residential neighborhood while also proclaiming a new era in the evolution of the area’s creative scene.
6) Park in the Prado neighborhood / Mayor’s Office of Medellín – Secretary of Infrastructure
Medellín, Colombia
©Isaac Ramírez Marín
The final nominee for the 2023 MCHAP award list is this stunning park. Set on a gently sloping piece of land; the geography is delicately developed to create terraces where plant, animal, and human populations are linked through the reuse of materials, the generation of soil permeability to improve run-off water infiltration, and the integration of traditional, vernacular building techniques.
The project serves as a metaphor for things that occur naturally; it is based on naturalizing cultural activities as a guiding concept for future city development.
This is the last phase of the 2023 MCHAP Award’s fourth cycle, which began in August 2021 with a premiere event in Venice, Italy. The panel of judges for the 2023 MCHAP Award will announce the winners on March 24th, 2023. In addition to having their work published, the inventors of the project selected as the winner will get a research grant of fifty thousand dollars.