Image by Christopher Shusta
Christopher Shusta, 2010 Rotch Scholar
Christopher Shusta of Princeton, New Jersey, has been named the 2010 Rotch Travelling Scholarship recipient. Shusta will receive a $37,000 stipend to spend eight months traveling and studying architecture around the world.
As first runner-up, Eric Weyant of Concord, Massachusetts, is invited to compete in next year’s final competition without re-entering the preliminary stage and is the 2010 alternate if Shusta declines the scholarship.
This year’s finalists also included Robert Alexander of San Pedro, California, Andrew Steingiser of Malden, Massachusetts, Cynthia M. Dorta-Quinones of Allston, Massachusetts, and Karen Blanchard of Philadelphia.
Forty-three competitors participated in the preliminary competition. They were asked to design a film archive and outdoor theater for Boston’s Chinatown.
The site featured in the challenge is on the edge of Chinatown, just south of the Chinatown Gate between Hudson Street and Surface Road. The parcel is home to “Films at the Gate,” a weeklong outdoor film festival, every summer, and the program brief challenged candidates to elaborate on this theme with re-designed outdoor theater and seating, as well as a new film archive.
Six finalists then moved forward into the second stage of the design competition, where they were charged with designing a Boston History Museum housed within City Hall.
Christopher Shusta of Princeton, New Jersey, received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia and his Master of Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Shusta works at RMJM in Princeton. In his application, he wrote: “I am interested in the ability of architecture to organize and choreograph people and information into productive relationships.”