Jennifer Siegal - Architecture MasterPrize Awards Juror

Jennifer Siegal

Office of Mobile Design (OMD) / Founder / Principal

Jennifer Siegal is known for her work in creating the mobile home of the twentieth century. She is founder and principal of the Los Angeles based firm Office of Mobile Design (OMD), which is dedicated to the design and construction of ecologically sound, dynamic structures, utilizing portable and prefabricated architecture.

She earned a master’s degree from SCI-Arc in 1994 and was a 2003 Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, where she explored the use of intelligent, kinetic, and lightweight materials. In 1997 she was in-residence at the Chinati Foundation and in 2004 a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony in her hometown, Peterborough, New Hampshire. She was the inaugural Julius Shulman Institute Fellow at Woodbury University, and is presently an Adjunct Associate Professor at USC. She is the editor of both Mobile: the Art of Portable Architecture (2002), More Mobile: Portable Architecture for Today (2008), and was the founder and series editor of Materials Monthly (2005-6), published by Princeton Architectural Press. A monograph on Jennifer Siegal was published in 2005.

Jennifer Siegal is the winner of the 2016 arcVision Prize “Women and Architecture” – an international award for women’s architecture organized by Italcementi. She was unanimously chosen by the jury for being a fearless pioneer in the research and development of prefabricated construction systems, at low prices for disadvantaged users and areas, who has been able to invent and build practical solutions and a new language for mobile and low-cost housing.” Her innovative design sensibilities and expertise in futuristic concepts, prefabricated construction, and green building technologies were recognized by the popular media in 2003 when Esquire named her one of the design world’s “Best and Brightest” and the Architectural League of New York included her in the acclaimed “Emerging Voices” program.

Jennifer Siegal was featured in Fast Company’s “Masters of Design” for her exceptional approach to utilizing new material and forms to create architecture. She was honored when mayor Antonio Villaraigosa presented her with the History Channel’s 2006 “Infiniti Design Excellence Award” for her competition entry for the Los Angeles City of the Future 2106. The Country School, the first green prefab school in Los Angeles, was recognized as one of the five best buildings in Los Angeles in 2007 by the LA Times. The winner of the inaugural 2009 USA Network “Character Approved Award” she is celebrated as leading innovators shaping American culture. In 2009 she was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award by SCI-Arc.