Since the BERKELEY PRIZE’s inception in 2000 as an international digital essay competition for undergraduate students studying architecture, nearly 1900 students from 62 countries have participated by submitting essay proposals for a response to a unique yearly Question revolving around the study of the social art of architecture. These are reviewed by, now, over 60 readers: BERKELEY PRIZE Committee Members who are architects, educators, allied professionals, and social scientists. The effort is to determine which proposals show the greatest likelihood to become substantial and meaningful essays.
Although the number varies, each year approximately twenty-five to thirty students who write these promising proposals are named as Semifinalists and invited to submit a 2500-word essay. Most do. Again, the essays are reviewed by the all of the readers and a small number, perhaps eight, are named as Finalists. These are forwarded to that year’s specially selected Jury to determine the, normally, four top overall winners of the competition. Winners’ essays are published on the website at the end of each year’s prize cycle.
Whether winners or not, the work in all of the top-scoring essays is uniformly high, exhibiting widely different and often intriguing perspectives on the Question. Even when the students are not able to express themselves in the most elegant language, there is often great passion for the subject and excitement in the writing. For whatever reason some of these top essays did not place as ultimate winners, there is intrinsic value in reading and thinking about all of them. The Reserve provides the opportunity to do exactly that.
The top sixteen-scoring essays from the past five PRIZE cycles are now archived in the Reserve (http://www.berkeleyprize.org/endowment/the-reserve). If you would like to contact the author of one or more of these essays, simply contact the PRIZE (www.BerkeleyPrize.org). We will forward your request to the author and ask them to respond directly to you if they are interested in doing so. We assume most will do exactly that. Please take advantage of this added opportunity to learn more about the social art of architecture from some of the best undergraduate architecture students in the world.
