Wolff, a 35-year-old architect that has worked for Acconci Studio, LOT-EK, Adjaye Associates, and Architecture Research Office (ARO), is presently an assistant professor adjunct at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union and a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute. She leads her own practice, which focuses on “performance and its use of space and objects to convey narrative, form, and emotion,” in her words. Recently, Wolff has been collaborating with the Phantom Limb Company on set designs for several productions. She received a Master of Architecture from Harvard GSD in 2008 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design in 2001.
The jury was enthusiastic about the strong continuity between Wolff’s existing body of work and her proposed area of study, stating how with “her interest in the community-based creative production of carnival floats, Wolff’s proposal has a social dimension that resonates with the current preoccupation with local fabrication and maker economies”.
The new Wheelwright Prize is an update of the Arthur Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship, which was established in 1935 and previously available only to GSD alumni. The original prize was conceived at a time when few architects traveled abroad, and for many early recipients — including Paul Rudolph, Eliot Noyes, William Wurster, and I. M. Pei — the fellowship financed travels that followed the tradition of the Grand European Tour. Under Dean Mostafavi, the GSD opened the prize to architects practicing anywhere in the world, recognizing the increasingly fluid flow of ideas and talent across the globe today, and the necessity of diverse forms of architectural research to developing new modes of practice.