After reviewing 73 responses received from an initial call for application, the search committee narrowed down the list first to 26 candidates, and then to 15 for a multi-round interview process. This was a diverse list including both male and female architectural minds from all six inhabited continents. After narrowing down the initial list to 8 following the first round of interviews, 3 superior candidates have now been chosen to be voted upon by students, faculty and council members of the Architectural Association. 

The shortlisted candidates are:

Pippo Ciorra – Senior Curator of MAXXI Architettura in Rome, an architect, critic and professor. He currently teaches design and theory at SAAD (University of Camerino) and is the director of the international PhD program ‘Villard d’Honnecourt’ (IUAV). In 2016 he co-curated the exhibition The Japanese House: Architecture and Life After 1945, which was exhibited at MAXXI, the Barbican in London and the MOMAT museum in Tokyo. His major exhibitions on contemporary architecture include Re-cycle, Energy, Erasmus Effect, Food.

Eva Franch i Gilabert – Architect, curator, educator and lecturer. Since 2010, Franch has been the Chief Curator and Executive Director of Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. In 2014, Franch, with the project OfficeUS, an experimental office for the production of history, ideas and work, was selected by the US State Department to represent the United States at the XIV Venice Architecture Biennale. Franch is currently a professor at The Cooper Union School of Architecture.

Robert Mull  –  Professor of Architecture and Design and Head of School at the University of Brighton. He is also the Director of Innovation at London-based urban design practice Publica. In 2000 he became head of the then UNL School of Architecture and in 2010 led the bringing together of two faculties to form The Cass (Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design) at London Metropolitan University. Robert is a trustee of the Architecture Foundation and of the London School of Architecture.