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As part of their 2026 grant cycle funding ideas to expand architecture and design, the Chicago-based Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts recently announced , totaling $506,000, to individuals, including awards to School of Architecture faculty member , and to  (DAS), the collaborative practice led by School of Architecture faculty members �����Ի��� in partnership with Zhang Xintong.

Selected from more than 600 submissions, 86 individuals—including established and emerging architects, artists, curators, designers, filmmakers, historians, scholars and writers—were given the prestigious annual grants for their exhibitions, films, publications, research, site-specific installations and digital initiatives that contribute new interdisciplinary ideas on architecture and design to publics around the world.

“Congratulations to distinguished professor Brown and visiting professors Li and Hu,” says Michael Speaks, School of Architecture dean. “These honors are among the most distinguished in architecture and the fine arts, and they will help further the recipients’ research and scholarship while strengthening our school’s broader academic mission.”

Brown and , associate director of public programs at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and founder of Point Line Projects, were awarded funding to support their book project, “Now What?! A Call for Advocacy, Activism and Alliances in US Architecture,” which critically examines architects’ engagement with political and social movements since 1968, drawing lessons from the past to chart new ways forward.

Building from the exhibition, “Now What?! Advocacy, Activism and Alliances in American Architecture Since 1968” that traveled around the country and abroad from 2018 to 2024, the book uncovers the little-known history of grassroots advocacy and activism within architecture, tracing the connections between the design profession and broader social and political movements. Grounded in historical reflection, it explores how architects have challenged prevailing norms, built alliances and expanded their influence beyond traditional practice. More than a historical account, the book serves as a call to action for architects seeking to engage more meaningfully with the social and political issues of their time.

The book highlights the stories of architects working at the margins who recognized their agency and used it to reshape both the profession and the communities they served. By examining the successes, setbacks and lasting impact of advocacy efforts since the late 1960s, the authors assess their relevance and potential for addressing contemporary challenges.

“Receiving a Graham Foundation grant affirms the critical importance of raising awareness about the rich and dynamic history of how architects have engaged and responded to pressing social and political issues of their time,” says Brown. “Sarah and I hope that publishing this book at this particular moment in time will be a rallying call for architects and designers to fight for social justice in the built environment and become an invaluable and inspiring resource for students and practitioners alike.”

DAS partners Li Han and Hu Yan, who serve as visiting professors in the School of Architecture, along with Zhang Xintong have received funding for “The Death and Life of an Apartment Building,” an exhibition that explores how small business operators—from shopkeepers to street vendors—informally reshape China’s built environment through adaptation, negotiation and reinvention.

Based on 17 years of observation, the project traces urban transformations: from apartments converted into bars and shops to vehicles repurposed as mobile storefronts, revealing how individuals respond to economic pressures, urban redevelopment, and tighter regulations with ingenuity. These transformations mark a turning point in China’s urban development. As expansion slows, informal spaces are increasingly displaced by more regulated forms of urban development.

The exhibition visualizes these fleeting spaces through drawings, hand-built models, comics and animations, reflecting how people claim, occupy and transform them. In doing so, it offers new ways of reading the city from the bottom up, foregrounding informal practice as a source of spatial intelligence and highlighting the ingenuity inherent in everyday interventions. The project draws on the team’s long-standing observations about the vitality and adaptability of everyday urban life.

The exhibition will be presented at A83 in New York in fall 2027. In the city where Jane Jacobs authored “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” the exhibition brings reflections from the other side of the globe into dialogue with the intellectual context that first shaped that work.

“We are incredibly honored to receive support from the Graham Foundation. The grant offers an opportunity to look back on nearly 20 years of work devoted to a single subject and to reconsider it as a coherent body of research and creative practice,” say Li, Hu and Zhang. “It also enables us to present architectural drawing not simply as a means of representation, but as a medium that can take many forms and engage with a wide range of cultural and social questions. We are grateful for the Foundation’s support, which will help bring this project to life and share it with a broader audience.”

The 2026 grantees join a worldwide network of individuals and organizations that the  has supported over the past 70 years. In that time, the Foundation has awarded more than $46 million in direct support to over 5,300 projects by individuals and organizations around the world.