The American Institute of Steel Construction’s Forge Prize is looking for groundbreaking ideas--and Emily Baker is particularly well qualified to help find them.
Baker is an inventor, fabricator, architect, and associate professor of architecture at the University of Arkansas, and now, she’ll be one of three jurors for the 2025 Forge Prize.
She also won the 2024 Forge Prize with a landmark trail head that showcases her Spin-Valence system, a revolutionary steel space frame that is both beautiful and functional. Spin-Valence allows a single sheet thickness of steel material to vastly increase its depth producing a structural space frame through the use of a kirigami strategy of cutting and folding.
“Spin-Valence is a perfect example of what the Forge Prize is all about,” said AISC Senior Architect Jeanne Homer. “It capitalizes on the unique characteristics of structural steel to create something entirely new. It’s strong while being light and airy and sculptural--but with entirely practical applications. For instance, the fact that it can be shipped flat and spun up onsite could make it a unique solution to problems in space!”
The American Institute of Steel Construction’s Forge Prize is the flagship competition of its new Architecture Center. It gives emerging architects, architecture educators, and graduate students a chance to dream big and imagine how structural steel can shape the space in which people will live, work, and play. At stake: an industry spotlight and $25,000 in cash prizes! Entries are due November 22, 2024.
Three finalists will each win $5,000 (plus free registration and travel support to attend the Architecture in Steel conference) and work with a steel fabricator to refine their design before presenting it live to the judges and the world in a live YouTube stream on March 18, 2025. The winner will receive a $10,000 grand prize and a showcase at the 2025 Architecture in Steel Conference (part of NASCC: The Steel Conference, April 2-4, 2025, in Louisville, Ky.).
Baker’s winning concept has gone even further. A sculptural Spin-Valence piece is in the permanent collection of Cranbrook Art Museum, and her collaboration with mathematician Edmund Harriss, Curvahedra, is permanently installed on the campus of University of Arkansas.
Baker has focused on self-structuring material systems and experimentation in her creative practice, research, and teaching.
In addition to the AISC Early Career Faculty Award and Forge Prize, Baker has received an ACSA Design Build Award for the Audi-Fab design/build studio sequence, which also received an AIA Design Merit award.
She’s currently collaborating with researchers from MIT, UVA and Princeton University on novel structural and construction systems, Zip-Form and Spin-Valence.
Baker holds degrees in architecture from University of Arkansas and Cranbrook Academy of Art. She teaches studios, structures, and fabrication at the University of Arkansas, and she previously taught at the American University of Sharjah and Tulane University.
About the Forge Prize
The Forge Prize, co-administered by AISC’s brand-new Architecture Center and AISC University Programs, challenges emerging architects, architecture educators, and architecture students to create design concepts that embrace innovations in steel as a primary structural material--with up to $15,000 on the line.
Three finalists will each win $5,000 (plus free registration and travel support to attend the Architecture in Steel conference) and work with a steel fabricator to refine their design before presenting it live to the judges and the world in a live YouTube stream on March 18, 2025. The winner will receive a $10,000 grand prize and a showcase at the 2025 Architecture in Steel Conference (part of NASCC: The Steel Conference, April 2-4, 2025, in Louisville, Ky.).
The competition is open to designers, teams of designers, or interdisciplinary teams led by an architect based in the U.S. who are:
- Emerging practicing architects (those licensed for less than 10 years or on the path to licensure);
- Tenured or tenure-track educators who have taught for less than 10 years in a university-level architecture program in the U.S.;
- Adjunct architecture educators who have taught for less than 10 years and have been licensed for less than 10 years or are on the path to licensure;
- Graduate-level architecture students enrolled in a university-level, U.S.-based architecture program.
The design community has embraced the challenge since the competition’s inception, creating concepts for jaw-dropping pedestrian bridges in San Diego and New York, a revitalized public housing community in Harlem, and, of course, Emily Baker's revolutionary space-frame system that is as beautiful as it is functional.
Submissions are due by 11:59 p.m. Central on November 22, 2024.