Fifth MCHAP.emerge Award to Building in Ecuador

The announcement of the winner came at the conclusion of the three-day Conference
on Critical Practice held last week at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Following the presentations of the four finalists, the jury* for MCHAP's fifth cycle selected the Centro Comunitario Productivo Las Tejedoras (Community Production Center Las Tejedoras) as the winner of the MCHAP.emerge Award. The other three finalists were Housing Building on Virrey Aviles Street Juan Campanini in Buenos Aires by Josefina Sposito; PILARES Cuicuilco in Mexico City by TO, +UdeB Arquitectos, and AGENdA agencia de arquitectura; and Elementary School in Santa Cruz de Villacuri Community in Salas, Peru, by Estudio Copla and Atelier Ander Bados.

Las Tejedoras was designed by José Fernando Gómez (Natura Futura) and Juan Carlos Bamba for the Young Living Foundation, which focuses on community programs for education and entrepreneurship. The building serves a collective of women weavers who had lacked a suitable environment for their craft but now have training spaces, workshop, a store, a gathering space — all organized around a central patio with native plants. Las Tejedoras involved these local women in its construction and was completed in spring 2023.

The two-story building is framed in paired round columns and beams of raw teak wood, which jury chair Maurice Cox described as “[elevating] the level of detail to one of sophisticated construction.” Other materials/assemblies include wood joists and wood plank flooring, herringbone-pattern brick walls and walkways, and a zinc roof over wood shingles. While the workshops and other spaces are open to the elements, tall wood shutters allow for shading the spaces as desired. The shutters stop short of the ceiling on the top floor, though, ensuring natural ventilation in the humid, tropical environment.

In addition to receiving the MCHAP.emerge Award, architects José Fernando Gómez and Juan Carlos Bamba will receive the MCHAP research professorship, in which they will lead a studio in the College of Architecture at IIT, and funding for a related publication. Past MCHAP.emerge laureates are Pezo von Ellrichshausen (2014), PRODUCTORA (2016), Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura (2018), and Taller Capital (2022).

Since it was established in 2014, the biennial MCHAP awards search for the best projects realized in the Americas over the previous two years, via anonymous nominations and then submissions from the nominated architects for the jury to review. Each cycle of MCHAP consists of the MCHAP.emerge Award and the MCHAP Americas Prize, given out every other year. The latter prize is currently underway, with a shortlist of 42 “outstanding” projects announced earlier this year; the finalists will be named in February 2025 and the winner to be announced on May 5, 2024. 

• Maurice Cox (chair), former planning and development commissioner at the City of Chicago
• Giovanna Borasi, director, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal
• Gregg Pasquarelli, founding principal, SHoP Architects, New York
• Mauricio Rocha, founder, Taller | Mauricio Rocha, Mexico City, and author of the 2023 Americas Prize winner, the renovation of the Museo Anahuacalli
• Sofia von Ellrichshausen, founding partner, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Concepción, Chile, and author of Poli House, the 2014 winner of the Prize for Emerging Practice