Cook Bruns Foundation
The Cook Bruns Foundation pursues exclusively and directly charitable purposes, in particular the promotion of science and research in architecture, urban planning, landscape planning and other areas of spatial planning in the search for solutions that serve to achieve UN sustainability goals. The foundation's purpose is to be realized primarily through the promotion of scientific internationalization.
Funding is provided to young researchers at the University of Kassel, including their research cooperation partners in Germany and abroad. Foundation funds are used if no or insufficient funding can be expected elsewhere for the measures to be supported.
Funding currently includes:
- Awarding the Cook Bruns Prize for very good research design of scientific theses, dissertations and postdoctoral theses, research publications, etc.
- The Cook Bruns Prize and the scholarship is announced annually in October.
Proposals for prizes and funding applications should be sent informally to bruns[at]asl.uni-kassel[dot]de
Proposals for prizes should be accompanied by a professional assessment of the work submitted. For the awarding of scholarships and grants, applications should outline the financing of the respective project, including the need for and scope of supplementary financing.
A committee appointed for this purpose evaluates the proposals and grant applications submitted. The foundation’s board of directors decides on the allocation of funds.
Flyer of Cook Bruns Foundation (German only)
The 2025 Cook Bruns Prize for the best research design was awarded to:
- Hilke Manot, Structural Design Department, Title: Development of Hybrid Construction Methods Combining Steel and Clay for Use in Future Multi-Story Residential Buildings
- Lea Sasha Furbach, Department of Design in Existing Buildings, Title: Uncomfortable Architecture as a Resonance Space
- Seyed Mobin Moussavi, Structural Design Department, Title: Resource-Efficient Construction through Optimized Cross-Sections and Elastically Formed Components
Young researchers were invited to apply for the 2024 Cook-Bruns Prize. The prize is awarded for the strategy and planning of studies. This includes all studies in the field of spatial planning and development that relate to actions aimed at implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The 2025 Cook-Bruns Fellowship was awarded to:
- Mona Hoffmann-Schwabe, Department of Design in Existing Contexts, Title: Architectural Education as a Space of Possibilities. A Laboratory for the Development of Participatory Design Pedagogy, with the Architectural Context as the First Building Block
- Helena Rafalsky, Alexander Rakow, Olympia Tomczyk, and Jens Wolter for the conceptual and thematic reorientation of the FUSION lecture series
- Robin Höning and Lisa Nieße for inviting futurists and theoretically oriented practitioners to the R:33 tour “Back to the Futures!”, which contextualize and expand current academic discourses on visions of the future, post-futurism, and societal agency.