Image by William Smith
2022 Rotch Scholar
William Smith, 2022 Rotch Scholar
William Smith has been named the 2022 Rotch Travelling Scholarship recipient. He will receive a stipend to spend at least six months travelling and studying architecture around the world.
The 2022 Rotch Travelling Scholarship Competition challenged applicants with interrelated design projects that honor the legacy of bell hooks, the well-known author, activist, professor, and scholar who was an advocate for Black feminism.
Commoning The Triple/Stack and Void – the preliminary brief, written by Sean Canty from Harvard GSD – used the triple-decker typology as the framework to design the “Boston Public Library (BPL) bell hooks Residency House” for local artists and two-family dwelling units. Commoning the Forum, written by J Jih from MIT – tasked finalists with designing a new forum commons for the bell hooks institute, an inclusive space which facilitates forms of gathering, discourse, and engagement within the heart of Dorchester, MA.
William is a designer from Oregon. He received his master in architecture degree with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and his bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Oregon. In his ongoing work, William experiments with the ways Architecture can take on expanded agencies with environmental and cultural issues in physical form. He has been a guest critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cornell University, Madrid IE School of Architecture, Wentworth Institute of Technology, University of Miami, California College of the Arts, and University of Oregon.