Five designers will spend the next three years helping to revitalize low-income areas at locations throughout the country as recipients of the Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship awards. The Enterprise Foundation, a national nonprofit housing and community development organization, awarded the fellowships. Each fellow will receive a $40,000 annual stipend plus benefits and will work directly with a nonprofit development organization in need of their services.

A jury selected the new fellows from more than 50 applicants nationwide, based on their academic records, relationships with their partner organizations, and feasibility of their proposals. Each has one or more master’s degrees and has illustrated a passionate commitment to improving the quality of life in low-income areas. The recipients and their affiliated nonprofit groups are:

• Victoria Ballard Bell, Assoc. AIA, in partnership with Design Corps and continuing the work of the late Samuel Mockbee, FAIA, will design and construct a job-training and child-care center in Marion, Ala., to address the root causes of the community’s chronic unemployment and poverty
• Nathaniel A. Corum, in partnership with Red Feather Development Group, Bozeman, Mont., will design and construct a planned community, a sustainable housing research building, and individual homes for several Native American communities facing acute housing shortages on the Great Plains
• Michael J. Gatto, Assoc. AIA, in partnership with Foundation Communities, will bring a vision of green, sustainable design to the construction and revitalization of affordable housing in Austin, Tex.
• Fernando Martí, in partnership with Mission Housing Development Corp., will conduct community planning and implement residents’ visions through the design and construction of community development and housing projects in San Francisco’s Mission District
• Jessica B. Wendover, Assoc. AIA, in partnership with Urban Ecology, will conduct community visioning processes and design and construct community revitalization projects in Oakland’s Lower San Antonio neighborhood.

“Adequate housing is a basic human right and communities without it are inherently unstable,” Gatto wrote in his extensive application form, representative of the intellectual and emotional commitment of the awardees.

The Enterprise Foundation fellowship program was established in 2000 to “unite underserved public service organizations with architectural expertise.” Nine fellowships have already been created. The awards honor the late Frederick P. Rose, a prominent New York developer and philanthropist who believed strongly in the value of good design and the spirit of public service. The new fellows will begin their three-year terms on August 1.

“The Rose Fellowships allow some of the top architecture talent in the country to make immediate, lasting contributions to low-income communities,” Bart Harvey, Enterprise Foundation chair and CEO, explains. “As a result, five nonprofits will have tangible help in addressing community problems like the lack of affordable housing and quality child care.”

Judges for the 2003 fellowships were:

• Jamie Blosser, current Rose Fellow
• Susan Butler-Plum, director, Skadden Fellowship Foundation
• Harvey Gantt, FAIA, former chair of the National Capital Planning Commission and principal of Gantt Huberman Architects, Charlotte
• Daniel Hernandez, Assoc. AIA, Jonathan Rose Companies LLC
• Robin Hughes, executive director, Los Angeles Community Design Center
• William Morrish, Elwood R. Quesada Professor, University of Virginia School of Architecture
• John Ratliff, Assoc. AIA, Esq., director and counsel, AIA Center for Livable Communities
• Jonathan Rose, president, Jonathan Rose Companies LLC
• Vincent Scully, AIA, Sterling Professor Emeritus, History of Art, Yale University, distinguished visiting professor, University of Miami School of Architecture
• Ron Shiffman, cofounder of New York City's Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development
• Jim Stockard, urban planner and professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design
• Lee Weintraub, director, Urban Landscape Architecture Program, City College of New York School of Architecture and Environmental Studies
• Peter Werwath, vice president, Enterprise Foundation
• R. Peter Wilcox, founder and executive director, Portland Community Design, Portland, Ore.

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