2024 Prize Recipient

Ariel Koltun-Fromm (MArch'25)

The Kanter Tritsch Prize in Energy and Architectural Innovation

Ariel is deeply concerned with the relevance, responsibility, and labor ethics of building practice, and is interested in new models of professional architectural work. Toward this end, Ariel has contributed to the running of MEANTIME, the non-profit arm of Philadelphia’s ISA Architects, with design-build work to program and activate vacant storefronts with pop-up retail, exhibitions, and performances by local creatives. Ariel is also devoted to work outside of practice. 

He has taught English in Germany on a Fulbright Fellowship, and has worked as a research assistant for the Department and for Denise Scott Brown. He is soon to publish his work on the contested histories of synagogue reconstruction in Germany in Architectural Research Quarterly. He has also contributed to efforts to improve student well-being within Weitzman’s graduate programs.

Ariel is truly grateful for all the faculty at Weitzman who have provided their astute guidance and support, without whose dedication to teaching such recognition would be unthinkable. As a student who couldn’t operate any design software on day one, Ariel is deeply indebted to his fellow students for graciously sharing their wealth of knowledge and for creating a joyous working environment. This award is as much a testament to the talent of the entire study body as it is to that of any one student.

Ariel Koltun-Fromm
  • some birdhouses
  • a slice through the queer spaces stacked inside the timber structure of The American LGBTQ+ Museum (project and model in collaboration with Austin White)
  • the museum is both flirtatious and coy, proud and assertive, while not revealing all its cards at once (project in collaboration with Austin White, drawing is my own work)
  • kitchen cores for commercial, common, and co-living use as a model for providing housing, income, and community to new arrivals and for reactivating a derelict mall
  • a performative façade that changes by proximity from blurring its interior to reflecting its exterior (project in collaboration with Austin White, drawing is my own work)
  • bits and pieces from a notebook, somewhere