05-07-04

IOWA STATE ARCHITECTURE STUDENT WINS INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

AMES, Iowa -- Angela Nkya (pronounced Nuh KEY ya), a fifth-year architecture student at Iowa State University, won theSixth Annual Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence competition.

Nkya, of Moshi, Tanzania, received the $3,000 first prize purse for her essay, "At Home in the City."

Nkya was one of 101 students worldwide who entered the competition with an essay on the topic, "Those Without Shelter."Students were asked to investigate the homeless and those who assist them within their own towns, developrecommendations and discuss the role of the architect in addressing the social issue.

In her essay, Nkya writes: "Despite the efforts to provide affordable housing, the number of people who are homelesscontinues to increase. The problem has now crossed the boundaries of dense urban areas and reached small communitiessuch as Ames. When I started to research homelessness I was surprised to learn that some of the homeless people wholive on streets have the choice of living in a shelter, but choose to live on streets instead. Homelessness as a choiceof living presents the greatest challenge to the problem. How can you design or provide a home to someone who does notwant it? As long as it remains a choice of living for some, we will never be able to eradicate the problem of peopleliving on the streets. But is there anything we can do to assist those who choose to live on streets? And how can we asArchitects, justify being involved or not being involved with the homeless?"

The entire essay can be found athttp://www.berkeleyprize.org/2004/essays.cfm?winners=342.The Berkeley Prize was established in the department of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, topromote architecture as a social art through writing and criticism. Jurors for the 2004 competition were MarcoCasagrande, architect and environmental artist, Finland; Beth Gali, urban planner and landscape architect, Spain; PeterPrangnell, architect and educator, Canada; and Minja Yang, Culture Sector, UNESCO.

Another Iowa State architecture student, Nicole Hoppenworth, Waterloo, was one of 25 semifinalists in thecompetition.

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