Kristine Fallon Prize
CFP: 2026 IAWA KRISTINE FALLON PRIZE
Women, Conflict and Architecture since the late 20th century
The IAWA is pleased to announce a call for proposals for the 2026 Kristine Fallon Prize of $5000. We invite proposals from professionals and scholars for a project that will result in a publication-ready article, chapter, book, manuscript, dissertation, or exhibition catalog. This cycle’s theme centers on the effects of global conflict on women practicing architecture since the late twentieth century.
Women have historically experienced a plethora of barriers to their participation and success in architectural practice. Throughout the twentieth century until today, women around the globe have faced further challenges from the upheavals and displacements of war, conflict, climate crisis, and regime change. The resulting difficulties, including resource scarcity, forced migrations, and the gender-based violence of oppressive regimes, affect whole populations. They also impose uniquely difficult conditions in which women practice and that threaten to damage or destroy their built work and archives. Such challenges have also displaced communities into hostile environments, to which women have responded through design. The 2026 Kristine Fallon Prize invites research that centers on women working in trying circumstances, negotiating repressive political, economic, environmental, or cultural conditions.
Projects may address the following:
- How women shape environments affected by conflict, war, or migration
- Work by women at risk of being lost due to destruction, repression, or gender-based violence
- How women have designed for refugee communities displaced by such events
- How female professionals negotiate of gender-based repression, such as limitations on access to the public sphere, mobility and travel, banking and contracts, or professional requirements such as education or licensure
The prize is awarded in a two-stage process:
First, applicants submit 500-word proposals that provide an overview of the selected topic within its context and describe the work to be conducted during the second stage. Proposals will be reviewed by an invited jury who will ultimately select up to five projects to advance. Each of the five selected will receive an award of $500 and advance to the second stage to be developed into a manuscript, due December 1, 2025.
The manuscripts will be judged by the same invited jury, and the second stage winner
will be announced in January 2026 and formally awarded during the 2026 IAWA Center Symposium in March 2026 at Virginia Tech, where the winner will present their project. To complete the record of the prize, a copy of the final published work must also be donated to the IAWA. The IAWA Mission encourages such research in addition to the goal of preserving archival materials related to the work of women who shaped the designed environment, thus preserving for prosperity a record of their achievements.
- 2026 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize Schedule
- November 2024 Call for Proposals Issued
- January 15, 2025 Stage 1 Proposals Due
- February 2025 Stage 1 Winners Announced
- December 1, 2025 Stage 2 Submissions Due
- January 2026 2026 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize Winner Announced
- March 2026 2026 IAWA Symposium – Awardee Project Presentation
Instructions for Submission:
- Submissions should be emailed by January 15, 2025 to: iawacenter@vt.edu Subject: The 2026 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize – Stage 1
- All submissions should be sent in PDF format and in English.
- All submitted entries for the Prize will be retained and preserved in the IAWA Collections, designated the IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize collection.
Any inquiries can be directed to Professor Elizabeth Keslacy, Director of Awards, International Archive of Women in Architecture at: iawacenter@vt.edu.
2024 Kristine Fallon Prize Announcement
The IAWA Center is pleased to announce that the 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize, with an award of $5000, has been awarded to Rebecca Edmunds for her manuscript Allison G. Williams: An Architect First.
Edmunds’ manuscript contributes to emerging scholarship about women architects of color by teasing out frictions between personal identity and a bureaucratic profession, self and corporation, recognition and anonymity. The manuscript focuses on the career and life of one of the earlier black women architects in the US, whose career began in the 1970s and is still practicing today. Allison G. Williams uniquely worked across several large architecture firms, including SOM, Perkins & Will, and AECOM, before starting her own practice. The story about Williams’ work is woven together with histories of large projects that evolved and changed in the face of economic recessions, abrupt career changes, and political storms. Williams’ career makes visible the shifts in the profession from 1970 to today. Through extensive oral histories that bring the reader close to Williams, the text holds promise as groundwork for future historical scholarship–not only about Williams, but also about other women who launched and negotiated their careers within large 20th century architectural firms.
2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize Finalists
Congratulations to the four 1st Stage finalists of the 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize!!! Selected among many compelling proposals submitted from around the world by professionals and scholars, the four finalists, Rebecca Edmunds, Robert Holton, Livy Li, and David Fleener will advance to the 2nd Stage of the prize. The four awarded proposals focus on women that made significant contributions to the field through their work practicing at large firms in the world in the second half of the 20th century. The research will bring to light women that worked at SOM, AECOM, Perkins+Will, and OMA.
The 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize of $5000
A two-stage research award
September 2022
With important contributions made by women at large architecture firms fundamentally unknown, research that documents this information is urgent. This year, the IAWA Center calls for proposals for the 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize of $5000 through a two-stage process. The final prize will recognize the best published or publication-ready manuscript that researches a woman or women that made significant contributions to the field through their work practicing at large firms anywhere in the world in the second half of the 20th century. To initiate the 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize, The IAWA invites proposals from professionals and scholars for a project that will result in publication-ready articles, chapters, books, manuscripts, dissertations, or exhibition catalogs or work-in-progress presentations that recognize women’s contributions in architecture as framed above. The 500-word proposal shall provide an overview of the selected topic within its context, and describe the work to be conducted during the second stage. The first stage of the two-stage process will conclude with the selection of up to five projects. Each of the five selected will receive an award of $500 and advance to the second stage. First Stage proposals will be due February 10, 2023. The work should be submitted as a PDF electronically by February 10, 2023 with the subject heading: The 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize – 1st Stage. All proposals to be submitted in English. All submitted entries for the Prize will be retained and preserved in the IAWA Collections, designated the IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize collection. The selected five Stage 1 proposals are to be developed during the second stage, and will be due December 1, 2023.
The 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize with an award of $5000 will be announced in January 2024 to be formally awarded during the 2024 IAWA Center Symposium in March at Virginia Tech where the recipient will present their project. To complete the record of the prize, a copy of the final published work must also be donated to the IAWA. The IAWA Mission encourages such research in addition to the goal of preserving archival materials related to the work of women who shaped the designed environment, thus preserving for prosperity a record of their achievements.
If further information is required, please contact Professor Donna Dunay at: iawacenter@vt.edu
Submissions should be addressed to:
IAWA Center Executive Committee
ATTN: Donna Dunay, FAIA
Chair, International Archive of Women in Architecture
School of Architecture
1325 Perry Street
201 Cowgill Hall (0205)
College of Architecture, Arts, and Design
Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA 24061
And emailed to: iawacenter@vt.edu
Subject: The 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize
2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize Schedule
- September 2022 Announcement and call: The 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize.
- February 10, 2023 1st Stage Submissions due.
- Early March 2023 Announcement of the 1st Stage Awards (up to five awards of $500 each). Five finalists work to the deadline for the 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize.
- March 2023 The 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize – 1st Stage Awardees are welcome and encouraged to present their proposals at the 2023 IAWA Symposium.
- December 1, 2023 2nd Stage Submissions due
- Mid-January 2024 Jury convenes with announcement of The 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize.
- March 2024 The winner of the 2024 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize – $5000 will present the final piece at the 2024 IAWA Symposium.