Each year, ZGF and the Oregon Community Foundation award one outstanding student beginning their final year in an accredited program with a $10,000 scholarship. We are excited to introduce the winner of this year’s ZGF Scholarship: Stanislas Chaillou, an architecture master candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and student winner of a 2017 American Architecture Prize.

A Paris, France native, Stanislas received his graduate degree at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne and was then hired as an intern at internationally renowned firms including Gigon Guyer Architekten in Zurich and Shigeru Ban Architects in Tokyo. Among his many impressive accomplishments, Stanislas serves as an Executive Director of the CitiX Initiative, a non-profit think tank exploring the potential of the urban realm of the future at The Future Society. He is also Fulbright scholar, an Arthur Sachs Fellow and Jean Gaillard Fellow at Harvard University.

“ZGF is delighted to award this year’s scholarship to such a talented, driven, and accomplished student designer as Stanislas. His portfolio exhibits a unique perspective on the intersection between art and science and we look forward to helping him grow and explore his passion,” said ZGF partner Braulio Baptista. “The ZGF Scholarship gives us the opportunity to celebrate and invest in the very best emerging talent in this field, fostering the next generation of designers.”

We sat down with Stanislas to ask him about his inspiration, current work, and hopes for the future.

What inspired you to study architecture?

The possibility to merge science with design was the initial intuition that brought me to architecture. I had the chance to have an artist mother, who taught me sketching early on. At the same time, I grew up around engineers and scientific minds. I think architecture seemed the most spontaneous way to blend these two facets I had: art and science.

Why did you apply to the ZGF scholarship and how will this help support you moving forward?

I heard about the ZGF scholarship a year ago. It was one of the few awards that would recognize students’ work and offer a real platform. I immediately prepared my application and crossed my fingers.

This award will certainly be a springboard for my career. Financially of course, to help defray my tuitions, but more profoundly it is a recognition of my work that gives it both visibility and recognition. And for all this I am grateful.

Tell us about your current work and its significance.

I am currently working on the topic of suggestive design, or how computers can assist designers in their everyday tasks. This project presents the opportunity to recognize the change happening in our discipline where machines and information can be leveraged to enhance our work and techniques.

As an example, an architect drawing a plan would be offered relevant geometries/objects/plans during drafting, options that could either complement or improve their current drawing; or even forecast the next step of their sketch. Far from the idea of “automating” the architect’s work, suggestions are a way to broaden the set of possibilities, and references used by architects and designers, without tampering with the design process. More deeply, suggestive design is a stepping stone toward a more integrated practice of digital design where computers and architects truly complement each other.

I am graduating in May 2019, so thesis is the short-term perspective. After that I would like to further my technical knowledge to later apply it to architecture.

I might be excessively optimistic, but I am hopeful that our profession can find a new impulse through technological innovation. We are witnessing today the start of a wider change in the construction industry that I want to be part of—might it be through a tech start up or innovative architectural practice!