University of Oregon

In partnership with Places Journal, the College of Design has announced a request for proposals for the new biennial Oregon | Places Prize with the theme of “Power and Place.”

The prize has been established to support ambitious public scholarship—or publicly engaged research, teaching, and programming—on the practices, institutions, spaces, and aesthetics that encourage or obstruct urban equity and environmental justice, as well as the relationship of the disciplines to the larger structures of power.

“We chose this theme because some of the most pressing issues today are linked to power,” said Liska Chan, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the College of Design. Chan is the chair of the Oregon | Places Prize selection committee.

“There are strong connections between place and power; one can see it in a city, for example, from disparities in socio-economics and the kind of power we use as energy to the aesthetics of an urban environment,” said Chan.

In the context of this call for proposals, power can mean anything from energy use (e.g, solar, coal, gas) to socio-economic or political power.

For the Oregon | Places Prize, the College of Design and Places Journal are looking for applicants who not only engage in academic writing but write for a broader audience as well. Applicants must be mid-career or senior scholars and can come from all disciplines that focus on the built environment or place, from architecture and landscape to policy and planning.

The winner of the Oregon | Places Prize will receive an honorarium of $7,500 to produce a major work of public scholarship for publication in Places Journal and for presentation in a public lecture at the College of Design in Eugene, Oregon. The Prize recipient will have a period of one year to complete both the article and lecture.

Deadline for application is 5 pm (PST) Monday, September 16, 2019. For more information and application requirements, visit the Oregon | Places Prize page.