The E. Lewis Dales Traveling Fellowships
The E. Lewis Dales Traveling Fellowships established under his will in 1963 for travel abroad during the summer prior to the student's final year as a candidate for the first professional degree in architecture. Competition for these awards is conducted by the Department of Architecture in January.
Students are selected for the Fellowships through an anonymous portfolio competition judged during the first week of the spring semester by a committee comprised of standing and core studio faculty. The Dales Fellowships enable the Department to encourage students to begin the documentation and presentation of their work, a process that is integral to the development of a design ethic and to interviewing for a job.
Jury Process
The Weitzman Architecture Faculty Jury (see list below) evaluated 60 anonymous portfolio submissions. They were asked to score each portfolio and submit short statements on what they valued while assessing each portfolio. The 2023 Dales Fellowships will be awarded to the highest scoring submissions.
Testimonials
I enjoyed the wide range of formal ambition toward complex social, material, ecological and problems. I tended to champion those portfolios that demonstrated an ability to develop the project beyond surface level with refined multiplicity that produced mature, disciplined and controlled architectural consequences in all three dimensions.
I looked for drawings that were created with care and attention to detail, projects that had a clear design logic and portfolios that suggested the emergence of a unique and identifiable voice.
Design thinking, strong synthesized ideas, and the unique ability to frame the larger body of the work are central criteria for evaluating the Dales Portfolio Entries. Design thinking should permeate the very organization and layout of the work, down to the font and other details of the portfolio. The synthesis of ideas is an important aspect of the evaluation, and I look for portfolios that have taken time to unify the work. The top portfolio selections frame their work within a larger architectural project.
I look for sensitivity to all scales of consideration, especially material systems and well thought out and programmed 2D drawings.
Look for three things in the work: a) a coherent travel proposal that ties into or grows out of the work being shown, b) a respect for site, people, program, and context, and c) evidence of a design process that is not only exploratory in nature but also demonstrates control of the process resulting in meaningful and compelling projects.
I particularly valued portfolios where, through the use of detailed and brilliant representation, one could read, along the various projects students' critical awareness of architecture's relations to social, economic and political processes.
Weitzman Architecture Department Faculty Jury
Mike Avery, Gisela Baurmann, Jonas Coersmeier, Brian DeLuna, Richard Garber, Nate Hume, Hina Jamelle, Ferda Kolatan, Ben Krone, Daniel Markiewicz, Larry Mitnick, Brian Philips, Laia Mogas-Soldevila, Eduardo Rega, Andrew Saunders, Robert Stuart-Smith, and Danielle Willems
