GSD faculty reel in progressive architecture awards

Office dA, the firm of Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) Architecture Professor Monica Ponce de Leon and Adjunct Professor Nader Tehrani, together with Aga Khan Visiting Fellow Aziza Chaouni, received P/A Awards – regarded as the world’s top honor for “un-built projects” – at the Center for Architecture in New York City this past January. Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies Hashim Sarkis was honored with a citation. All three projects were featured in the January issue of Architect magazine.

Ponce de Leon and Tehrani’s firm received an award for “Villa Moda: New Kuwait Sports Shooting Club,” a project that expands the existing club into a community with residential units and public spaces. Chaouni, meanwhile, received an award for “Hybrid Urban Sutures: Filling in the Gaps in the Medina of Fez,” her research on how to repair the crumbling yet vital Medina of Fez, Morocco. Chaouni was featured on the cover of the January issue of Architect magazine, which included a profile and a review of her project in Fez. Lastly, Sarkis was honored with a citation for his Bab Tebbaneh School for Working Children and for Women in an impoverished neighborhood in Tripoli, Lebanon.

Since 1954 the P/A awards have recognized innovative architecture at the moment of conception. Over time they have served as bellwethers of emerging architectural design trends and talents.