Winners of Inaugural Miller Prize Announced

John Hill

9. January 2017

"Untitled" by Oyler Wu Collaborative (All images courtesy of Exhibit Columbus)

Exhibit Columbus, the annual celebration of the Indiana city's extraordinary design heritage, has announced the five winners of its inaugural J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize Competition, which will realize the winning temporary pavilions later this year.

Ten finalists competing for five sites in Columbus (two finalists per site) were selected following the inaugural Exhibit Columbus symposium last year. On 10 December 2016 the finalists presented their designs to a jury at a public presentation. Today's announcement of the five winners is the next step in realizing the installations as part of the Exhibit Columbus exhibition that will open in late August 2017.

The five Miller Prize sites are notable for their architectural merits, with two of them designated as National Historic Landmarks: First Christian Church by Eliel Saarinen and the Irwin Conference Center by Eero Saarinen. Other sites are I.M. Pei's Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, Kevin Roche's Cummins Corporate Office Building, and Michael Van Valkenburgh's Mill Race Park.

The 2017 Miller Prize winners and Columbus sites are:

studio:indigenous
Wiikiaami at First Christian Church
Principal: Chris Cornelius

IKD
Conversation Plinth at Cleo Rogers Memorial Library
Principals: Tomomi Itakura and Yugon Kim

Oyler Wu Collaborative
Untitled at Irwin Conference Center
Principals: Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu

Plan B Architecture & Urbanism
Anything can happen in the woods at Cummins Corporate Office Building
Principals: Joyce Hsiang and Bimal Mendis

Aranda\Lasch
Another Circle at Mill Race Park
Principals: Benjamin Aranda and Chris Lasch

According to Exhibit Columbus: "Each entry was judged on its formal/ spatial relationship to the site, ability to activate the space, innovation in the use of materials, and potential to stimulate a dialogue with the context of the site."

The runners-up in the competition are: Höweler + Yoon, Johnston Marklee and Jonathan Olivares, Ball-Nogues Studio, Baumgartner + Uriu, and Rachel B. Hayes Studio.

Jurors for the 2016 Miller Prize were Sean Anderson, associate curator in the Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art; Lise Anne Couture, co-founder and principal, Asymptote Architecture; Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Dung Ngo, publisher, August Editions.