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Earlier this year, the Architects Foundation awarded the 2022 Yann Weymouth Graduate Scholarship to Cheyenne Yamada. Yamada, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, will receive a $5,000 scholarship towards tuition for demonstrating an exemplary work focus of design that includes sustainability, resilience, wellness, and beauty. The scholarship honors practicing architect Yann Weymouth, FAIA, who will also mentor Cheyenne.

“Cheyenne demonstrated in her student work a practical and imaginative focus on creating environments to support those in society with few resources. She made inventive use of available local materials to respond to local climate and conditions. Her strongest project combined hand-drawn and digital images with which she portrayed her vision of a safe and welcoming community for homeless persons camping in remote Oahu beaches. The unexpected combination of techniques demonstrated a sensitive empathy and mature presentation,” said Weymouth.

“Ms. Yamada’s talent is coupled with a sense of responsibility for how it should be applied to creatively address issues of equity and sustainability.”

Prior to studying at the University of Pennsylvania, Cheyenne graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Science in Pre-Professional Architecture in 2021.

Cheyenne is of Chamorro and Filipino descent, born in Saipan of the Northern Mariana Islands and raised in the mainland U.S. just outside of Washington D.C. Coming from these dual landscapes of a fourteen by five mile long island in the Pacific versus a metropolitan area, she has been exposed to incredibly diverse natural, built, and socioeconomic environments. It is her unique upbringing to which she attributes her continuing curiosity about how design influences people from different walks of life as well as how it affects the natural environment in which it intervenes. This curiosity has sustained throughout her architectural studies thus far as her studio projects have naturally gravitated towards sustainable design efforts to simultaneously promote both cultural and environmental resilience.

Applications for the 2023 Yann Weymouth Graduate Scholarship will open November 7. Sign up to receive notifications about the application opening.