Architecture professor’s house design wins state’s top prize

A house designed, built and owned by Marc Manack, associate professor of architecture, with his firm SILO AR+D, was awarded the 2023 George Matsumoto Prize from NCModernist, a nonprofit organization and educational archive established for the documentation, promotion and preservation of residential modernist architecture in the state. Founded in 2012, the Matsumoto Prize is North Carolina’s highest honor exclusively for modernist residential architecture.

Manack’s home, “Steel Louise,” was selected the first place winner from among 19 applicants by a distinguished six-member jury of nationally respected architects and architectural critics.

“For the first time in the prize’s history, the jury was nearly unanimous in choosing Manack’s entry as first place,” said George Smart, HAIA, executive director of U.S. Modernist.

“Steel Louise” is a single-family residential urban infill project in the Belmont neighborhood of Charlotte. The design/build team, hired by SILO, included recent UNC Charlotte architecture graduates Amelia Gates ’21, Whitni Irving ’19 M.Arch, Nicholas Sturm ’21, ’22 M.Arch., Francisco Ceron ’21 and Jake Froning ’21, ’22 M.Arch.

Manack, who serves as president of the Charlotte chapter of the American Institute of Architects, frequently engages students and alumni in design/build projects. Learn more about that work in this digital feature, Building Impact.