The MacArthur Foundation announced its 2017 Fellows on October 11, granted to “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits.” Among the 24 award recipients this year are Kate Orff, who directs Columbia GSAPP’s Urban Design Program since 2015, and Urban Design faculty Damon Rich.
The Fellowship is an extraordinary distinction and its selection criteria include “promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments.”
Columbia GSAPP Dean Amale Andraos said, “I’m very happy for Kate Orff to receive this well-deserved recognition. Professor Orff is one of the most important voices of her generation, leading the change in how we understand the built environment and actively designing new ways to engage it in our time of uncertainty and climate change. Kate is an incredible educator as well as an outstanding practitioner. Her leadership and commitment to environmental sustainability and social justice as well as her belief in design’s transformative capabilities are inspiring students and reshaping the fields of architecture, landscape and urban design in important and critical new ways.”
“It is an honor to have two MacArthur Fellows at the school. Damon Rich was actually invited by Kate Orff to teach a seminar on Activism and Engagement in Urban Design this semester. Damon is a wonderful colleague whose work we all admire greatly. It’s fantastic to have him with us this semester and his transformative and influential work with the Center for Urban Pedagogy was included in an exhibition at the school’s Ross Architecture Gallery last fall.”
Read the full announcement report on Columbia News, read more about the fellows in this Los Angeles Times feature, and watch the MacArthur Foundation profile video.
