The American Prize for Architecture 2022 Winner, SHoP Architects Award News, Arts Club Chicago

American Prize for Architecture 2022 News

Most Prominent Architects Firm in the United States – Architectural Prize USA

post updated November 26, 2022

Renowned American Architecture Studio SHoP Architects — the Design Office Of Two Of New York’s Most Recent Supertall Skyscrapers—are Named As This Year’s Laureates Of The American Prize For Architecture For 2022

photo courtesy of The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

The American Architecture Prize 2022 Winner

The official award ceremony for what has come to be known internationally as America’s highest architecture tribute will be held during the 2022 American Architecture Awards Gala Dinner at The Arts Club in Chicago on December 2, 2022

(CHICAGO, ILLINOIS (November 18, 2022) — SHoP Architects’ principals Angelica Trevino Baccon, John Cerone, Dana Getman, Gregg Pasquarelli, Coren Sharples, Christopher Sharples, and William Sharples have been selected as this year’s Laureates of The American Prize for Architecture by both The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

With ongoing projects spanning across the globe, from Melbourne to Botswana, the practice has continually pushed the boundaries of what’s been accepted as the traditional role of the architect, with projects that have gotten bigger, and taller, over the last 25 years, all the while maintaining the firm’s consistent approach.

According to their office: “They ask a lot of questions, they immerse themselves in great intellectual research and debate, and they never assume that they are specialists in anything to the degree that there’s not lots to be gained by considering other perspectives.”

Founded in 1996, the 60-person practice is based in Lower Manhattan, New York City and is recognized for their ability to bring together and optimize diverse expertise in the field of design that improves the quality of public life, that challenges classic construction processes, and that demonstrates that beauty and technological proficiency are not mutually exclusive.

Uber Air Skyport by SHoP Architects with Gensler, 2019:

photo courtesy of The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

This unique philosophy has jettisoned the office into world-wide prominence.

“Over the years,” states Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, architecture critic and president/CEO of The ChicagoAthenaeum, “SHoP Architects have always been curious, demanding more and pushing the design envelope further and further, but always sticking to the firm’s core principles, while looking at the complexity of the project and its context and its social consequences, but never reducing their work to a style or an image.”

“Their role as an architect has been first to be a good urban citizen; to consider public space in a way that advances joy and health and equity; and to create workplaces and a culture that supports greater wellness and collaboration, all the while toward establishing a more honest, more joyful, humane and resilient environment.”

“Their work demonstrates a larger scale of exuberance in their forms that embody the joy of being poised on the edge of the city, the movement of the water, and the open, expansive views of the skyline.”
“From New York to Sydney, SHoP’s buildings add a new sense of dynamism to a city and how important is it to design buildings that truly capture the public’s imagination.”

“SHoP believes that buildings should reflect the lively, vibrant communities around them, and therefore each building they design is uniquely grounded in a sense of place, always reacting to the community, history, and physicality of a location as they design.”

Uber Headquarters by SHoP Architects and Quezada Architecture:

photo : Jason O’Rear

“In essence, their architecture captures the liveliness of the buildings they specifically embody.”
The SHoP design approach challenges the commonly-accepted model of architectural practice, by going beyond the traditional expertise of the architect.

A philosophy that translates into 360-degree design, considering the site, cultural and economic environment, the client’s physical needs and budget constraints, as well as construction techniques, branding, marketing and post-occupancy issues.

This approach has resulted in the construction of domestic dwellings, commercial offices, schools and public institutions on five continents, routinely combining design with financial and technological resources.

SHoP Architects maintain that intelligent, evocative architecture can be introduced in the real world while adhering to its constraints.
This is the reason why clients such as Google, Urber, Goldman Sachs, and the U.S. State Department turned to the New York practice for their offices.

Pier 15, New York by SHoP Architects, 2012:

photo : Pygmalion Karatzas

Notable SHoP projects include the Barclays Center Arena (Brooklyn, New York 2012) with Ellerbe Beckett, a sports center built using cutting-edge technology. By developing an app for scanning the facade panels, their path was tracked through every stage of production up to final assembly. The architectural renovation of Pier 17 (New York 2018) transformed the historic pier on South Street Seaport into a multi-purpose commercial facility open to the public. Midtown Center (Washington, D.C. 2018) is a complex of offices, restaurants and retail stores spread over two buildings connected by three bridges arranged around the large public plaza below.

The studio is also noted for large-scale urban planning projects such as their Masterplan to regenerate the Domino Sugar industrial area in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York (2010) with James Corner Field Operations or the general plan for Essex Crossing (New York 2019), a collaboration with Beyer Blinder Belle and dynamic contribution to the Lower East Side of Manhattan; the design for the Schuylkill Yards mixed-use neighborhood (Philadelphia 2018); and finally Pier 35 (New York 2019) with Ken Smith Workshop to convert the pier into an eco-park.

Pier 17, New York by SHoP Architects, 2018:

photo : Ty Cole OTTO

Most recent SHoP projects include the 84-story 111 West 57th Street (New York 2021), a Manhattan skyscraper with a facade of glass and terracotta on the edge of Central Park and the fourth tallest building in the United States; 447 Collins Street with Woods Bagot Pty Ltd. (2020), a multi-functional arch located at the heart of the Central Business District, Melbourne, Australia; Uber’s new headquarters (San Francisco 2021); the 93-story Brooklyn Tower (Brooklyn, New York 2021), the tallest building in New York City outside Manhattan; the Atlassian Headquarters with BVN (Sydney, Australia 2025), the world’s tallest hybrid timber tower with an steel exoskeleton that supports “mega floors” that divide the tower vertically into what SHoP Architects describes as “neighborhoods;”and the Hudson’s Site with Hamilton Anderson Associates (Detroit 2025).

Additionally, the practice has recently collaborated with Gensler to design air skyports for Uber—a concept that looks to reclaim the past eras of flight and the magic embodied in the idea of effortless movement.

Their latest project is neither supertall in New York, Sidney, or Melbourne nor a massive urban redevelopment of declining area of a megalopolis, but a humble and enduring restoration of an early 20th-Century campus, including the design for a new U.S. Consulate building in Milan.

Like most of SHoP works, this project seeks transparency, openness, and luminosity with a respect for the inherited and a quest to act responsibly in the present.

Established in 1994, The American Prize for Architecture, also known as The Louis H. Sullivan Award, is given to an outstanding office and/or practitioner in the United States that have emblazoned a new direction in the history of American Architecture with talent, vision, and commitment and has demonstrated consistent contributions to humanity through the built environment and through the art of architecture.

The Award, organized jointly by two public institutions, The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, honors American architects, as well as other global architects practicing on a multiple of continents, whose body of architectural work, over time, exemplifies superior design and humanist ideals.
The American Prize for Architecture pays tribute to the spirit of the founder of modernism, Louis Sullivan, and the subsequent generations of Chicago practitioners such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel H. Burnham, and Holabird & Root.

It also broadcasts globally the significant contributions of America’s rich and inspiring architecture practice and its living legacy to the world at large.

Previous Laureates include: Sir Norman Foster, Michael Graves, the General Services Administration, Richard Meier, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, Form4Architecture, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates PC., Bernardo Fort-Brescia and Laurinda Spear of the Miami-based firm of Arquitectonica, and Eric Owen Moss.

Last year, the Prize was given to Victor F. “Trey” Trahan of Trahan Architects, APAC.
For over the last 25 years, the intellectual practice at SHoP Architects has been led by seven astute principals of diverse expertise:

As a founding principal, Gregg Pasquarelli has been at the center of SHoP’s collaborative practice leading teams in design, master planning, and real estate development.
He has served as lead partner on many of the firm’s most prominent projects, including The Porter House, the Barclays Center, Pier 17 and the East River Waterfront esplanade, 111 West 57th Street, and the American Copper Buildings.

Beyond the studio, Pasquarelli has earned a reputation as a thoughtful leader of his generation of innovative architects and a powerful advocate for design quality and community values in contemporary city-building.

55 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia by Woods Bagot Pty Ltd. and SHoP Architects, 2021:

photo courtesy of The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

His dedication to moving the profession forward continues in his commitment to lecturing and teaching, where he brings SHoP’s message—about the unity of technological invention, artistic inspiration, and public responsibility—to students across the country and around the world.

Pasquarelli received his Bachelor of Science from the School of Business at Villanova University and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University.

He lectures and publishes globally and has held chaired professorships at schools including Yale University, Columbia University, and The University of Virginia.

He is a recipient of the Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and in 2016 was inducted as a lifetime honoree Academician in the National Academy of Design.

111 West 57th Street, New York, by SHoP Architects, 2022:

photograph : Michael Young

William Sharples is also a founding principal of SHoP, where he applies a background in engineering to more than 35 years of industry leadership in design and master planning, working in complex, urban contexts to create dynamic projects that transform communities.

He has served as lead partner on a wide range of projects, including with Syracuse University, Drexel University, the Fashion Institute of Technology, Google, Uber, and the Botswana Innovation Hub.
He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University.

Christopher Sharples, another founding principal of SHoP, is an industry advocate for new practices that advance sustainability, equity, and inclusion as vital to the design of public and cultural spaces for communities.

He holds Bachelor of History and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees from Dickinson College, and his Master of Architecture from Columbia University and has taught, lectured, exhibited, and been published frequently and internationally.

Angelica Trevino Baccon is a principal of SHoP and has as particular expertise in leading complex mixed-use and workplace design projects, often at the intersection of enterprise and technology.

She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from ITESM in Monterrey, Mexico, and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University, where she has also served as a professor.

John Cerone is a principal at SHoP, where he leads design technology development and dedicated initiatives for model-based delivery and offsite manufacture.

He is internationally recognized as an innovator in the exploration of future technologies in design and construction.

He received a Master of Architecture from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Miami University.

Dana Getman is also principal at SHoP, where her particular interest and expertise is in projects at the intersection of complex city-building and community engagement, including her leadership of the master plan and key public programs for Essex Crossing on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and design and construction for the East River Waterfront master plan, which created 14 million square feet of public space for New Yorkers and visitors.

She received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, where she also teaches, and a Master of Architecture II from Yale University. She also is the vice chair of the Urban Land Institute Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) in New York and a member of the urban planning committee at the Municipal Art Society.

Corie Sharples is a registered architect who has taught at the Parsons School of Design. Actively involved in community work, she volunteers in the New York City public schools and serves on the local Borough of Manhattan Community Board.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in business and management from the University of Maryland, and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University. She teaches and lectures globally and is regularly featured in international publications. She writes and lectures frequently about the firm’s work and issues facing the profession.

As a firm, SHoP Architects have received numerous awards such as the National Academy Distinguished Achievement Award, Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Architecture Firm in the World” and Smithsonian/Cooper Hewitt’s “National Design Award for Architecture.”

“Through their design of public spaces and urban developments, SHoP Architects’ work is neither demonstrative or imposing, but more something familiar, useful, and beautiful, with the ability to quietly support the life that will take place within it as a benefit to the individual socially, ecologically and economically, and thereby aiding the evolution of a city,” continues Narkiewicz-Laine.

“For more than 25 years, SHoP’s critical approach to architecture has embodied generosity of space, ideas, uses and economy of means, materials, and also of shape and form.”

“They accomplish this through a powerful sense of space and materials that creates architecture as strong in its forms as in its convictions.”

U.S. Consulate General, Milan, Italy by SHoP Architects, 2021:

photo courtesy of The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

“Their designs have a singular presence and strength, but arre also subdued in a way that respects and contributes to the fabric of the city.”

“And through their belief that architecture is more than just buildings, through the issues they address and the proposals they explore and realize, through forging a responsible path and illustrating that the best architecture can be humble and is always thoughtful, respectful, and responsible, SHoP has shown that architecture can have a great impact on our communities and can contribute to the awareness of the better public good and a better society as a whole.”

For both their body of work realized and that of the future, SHoP Architects have been named the 2022 Laureates of the American Prize for Architecture.

The official ceremony for The American Prize for Architecture takes place at a Gala Reception/Dinner during Art Basel that also honors the recipients of the 2022 American Architecture Awards on Friday, December 2 at The Arts Club of Chicago (201 East Ontario Street, Chicago, Illinois).

SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico by SHoP Architects, 2018:

photograph : Jeff Goldberg, Esto

Tickets are available by calling The Chicago Athenaeum at +815/777-4444 or by email at jennifer@chicagoathenaeum.org.

SHoP’s recent work and over 150 winning projects from the 2022 American Architecture Awards are published as a catalogue for Global Design + Urbanism XXII (“New American Architecture”) edited by Christian Narkiewicz-Laine for Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd.

The catalogue is available through The European Centre by email konstadina@europeanarch.eu and at www.metropolitanartspress.com.

The Chicago Athenaeum

The Chicago Athenaeum (www.chi-athenaeum.org) is a global nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide public education about the significance of architecture and design and how those disciplines can have a positive effect on the human environment.

The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies (www.europeanarch.eu) is dedicated to public education concerning all aspects of the built environment – from entire cities to individual buildings – including the philosophical issues of arts and culture that ultimately give the final shape to design. A high emphasis exists on contemporary values and aesthetics, conservation and sustainability, and the theoretical exploration and advancement of art and design as the highest expression of culture and urbanism

The Chicago Athenaeum:
Museum Of Architecture and Design
The Historic Fulton Brewery
601 S. Prospect Street,
Galena Illinois 61036
United States of America

SHoP Architects

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