UK Instructor, Alum Receive Rome Prize in Architecture

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 18, 2011) − The American Academy in Rome has awarded University of Kentucky College of Design architecture instructor, Angela Co, with the prestigious Rome Prize. Co is one of only two recipients to receive the Rome Prize in architecture this year. The other recipient of the Rome Prize in architecture is a 1992 graduate of the UK College of Design, Lonn Combs.

The Rome Prize is presented annually by the American Academy in Rome to approximately 30 individuals who represent the highest standard of excellence in the arts and humanities. Recipients are invited to Rome for six months to two years to immerse themselves in the academy community where they will enjoy an opportunity to expand their own professional, artistic or scholarly pursuits, drawing on their colleagues' knowledge and experience and resources in Italy, Europe, and at the academy.

In 2010, Angela Co was also awarded the renowned MacDowell Colony Fellowship in Architecture. The MacDowell Colony is one of the nation’s oldest and leading residency programs, more than 6,500 artists have received fellowships since its founding in 1907. Each year 250 fellowships, or residencies, are awarded to artists in seven disciplines: architecture, music composition, film and video, interdisciplinary art, theatre, visual art and literature. Recipients of the MacDowell Colony Fellowship receive room, board and exclusive use of one of the 32 studios on the property for up to eight weeks.  

Co’s firm, Studio Co, is an architectural initiative in pursuit of possible worlds through critical inquiry into our natural and constructed ones. Her research includes a collaboration with Aeolab on the "Weather-Making Balloon" media installation and nomadic pavilion, which has exhibited at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Atelier in New York City. Co has also worked on theoretical and built projects with Bernard Tschumi Architects and Asymptote Architecture.

Co holds a master's degree in architecture from Columbia University’s GSAPP (Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation), where she was awarded an Honorary Design Award and the Loewenfish Memorial Prize for Design Excellence. 

She is currently an instructor of architecture at the UK College of Design.

Lonn Combs received his professional architecture degree from UK College of Design in 1992, and later received a post-professional degree at Columbia University in 2001.  Combs co-founded EASTON+COMBS in 2004. The collaborative architectural office operates as a laboratory for innovative building strategies at the intersection of material practice and applied architectural research. The firm was invited to participate in the MoMA P.S.1 Young Architects Program in 2009-10. In addition, EASTON+COMBS was recognized in the New York AIA (American Institute of Architects) "New Practices New York 2010" competition.

Combs has taught at Pratt Institute, City College of New York and Cornell University. He has served as the assistant chair and later acting chair of undergraduate architecture at Pratt Institute from 2007-2010. Combs is currently a clinical associate professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, (859) 257-1754 ext. 229; Whitney.Hale@uky.edu