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Student Project Award
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Jinsu Park is an architectural designer currently working in Switzerland with previous work experience in S. Korea, USA, Canada and Japan. He has obtained his Bachelor's in Architectural Studies at the University of Waterloo in Canada and is in the process of obtaining his Master's of Science in Architecture at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture in Switzerland. Jinsu has an interest in human scale design and the vernacular of different regions all over world. His work has been exhibited globally including in Canada, Japan and most recently at the 17th Venice Architectural Biennale in 2021.
-Founding Partner at Aleph-Bau -Visiting/sessional lecturer at UWaterloo and UofT -Experience as an architect at OMA and SOM -Internship at Office dA -Experience as an independent architect & at Jameh Technique -Professional experience covers a range of projects from small residential to large scale urban projects in China, US, England, The Netherlands, and Iran.
Michael Fohring is a co-founder of Odami, a Toronto-based design studio. The studio’s work ranges from architectural design to interiors, furniture, and small objects, and has won local and international awards, including the Designlines Designer of the Year, an AN Interior Award, and a Canadian Interiors Award. Through challenging the conventions of typology and traditional building techniques, the studio’s focus is to produce work which is highly contextual and well-crafted, yet playful and unexpected. Prior to starting Odami, Michael worked in architectural offices in Montreal, Toronto, and Austria. In addition to the work of the studio, Michael has maintained a regular role as a sessional instructor since 2017, teaching at both the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Interior Design and the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. Michael completed his B.Sc.Arch and M.Arch degrees at McGill University in Montreal, where he was named to the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Honour Roll, and was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Medal and the RAIC Student Medal. Michael was also named amongst 30 international designers under 30 in 2018, awarded by the New York City-based One Club for Creativity.
Arancha González Bernardo (B.Sc.Arch, M.Arch: ETSAC, A Coruña, Spain; BCIN) is a Spanish architect and co-founder of Odami, an architectural and design firm based out of Toronto, Canada. Founded in 2017, the studio focuses on residential and commercial projects, supplemented with material experimentation and furniture and object design. Prior to co-founding Odami, Arancha worked in offices in Spain, Austria, and Canada, collaborating on projects in cities across Europe and North America. Arancha completed her studies in Architecture at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura in La Coruña, Spain, with a specialty in Theory and Design. In addition to Odami, Arancha is a Sessional Lecturer at the School of Interior Design of the Toronto Metropolitan University.
Mark is committed to the exploration of visual compositions and spatial experiences using digital tools. In addition to his architectural training, he has a background in oil painting and building envelope consulting. Having participated in and won multiple design competitions in his time as a student, he is keenly aware of - and always challenging - the boundary between virtual architecture and built architecture. Mark is currently an architectural designer at Henriquez Partners Architects in Vancouver. He Holds a Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Waterloo.
Katrina is an architect and design manager at JDS Development Group, an innovative real estate development, construction, and acquisition firm responsible for the creation of numerous residential, hospitality, and mixed-use projects in New York City and Miami. Currently, Katrina is managing design for 888 Brickell Avenue, in Miami, Florida, set to be the tallest building in the city upon completion. Prior to joining JDS, she worked in design at various boutique design firms in New York City before becoming a development associate and licensed real estate salesperson at Alloy Development. She is committed to promoting a holistic and collaborative approach to real estate development that brings together design, sales and marketing. She is a dedicated mentor at Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale and a team leader for the ACE Mentor Program of Greater NY. She holds both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Architecture from Yale University.
1st Place
"EMBODIED" The Last Vacation
In this project, working pair with Arif Izzuddin Arif Ismail we explore the idea of "human dead," creating a process of a human going to end his life, which produces sources and energy from the death, and in an alternate timeline, creating a new starting dimension of constructing a building, which is started from sources and energy. They can create a building material and an extension of a building.
Aiman Hakim Rahman
March 22, 2023
2nd Place
UNDER THE ROOF - WOODEN STRUCTURE DESIGN
This is my undergraduate work, it has two backgrounds: 1. The topic of the class is wooden structure design - public building or residential building 2. Villages and towns in southern China lack public facilities. There are many interesting social activities here, such as opera troupes wandering between villages and towns, traditional Chinese weddings and so on. I hope to provide a suitable and decent residence + public buildings for the Village.
Yuqiao Sun
April 18, 2023
3rd Place
Urban Agriculture as an agent of socio-environmental transformation
Sustainable food production and consumption are critical societal demands all around the world. In an era of scarcity of natural resources, frequent climate change, and a society heavily hit by food insecurity, expanding access to and supply of food with less environmental impact while reducing losses and waste should be a priority. Urban agriculture emerges as a potential solution to a number of interconnected issues in urban systems, including waste management, health, land use, the possibility of reducing distances between production and consumption, the use of open spaces in the city, the disposal of household garbage, and the generation of occupational activity with subsequent income generation. Furthermore, it can actively impact in city adaptation to climate change and sanitary crises, such as the present COVID-19 pandemic. The Agroecological Pavilion aims to combine the commercialization of affordable food with uses aimed at education and professionalization in a building lined on the premises of sustainable architecture and open to community participation in order to reduce negative environmental impacts, food insecurity, and food waste. Additionally, it enables a generator of employability, income, and education targeted for people who are in social vulnerability.
Ana Carolina Borile
April 21, 2023
4th Place
PANO REHABILITATION PLACE FOR MS
Rehabilitation centers are not offering suitable settings for patients to heal physically. By confining physical therapy to a single room, these facilities do not encourage movement, stimulation of the senses, or aid in patients' recovery. Rather than limiting physical therapy to a specific space, the infrastructure of rehabilitation centers, such as hallways and corridors, could be utilized to create an interactive and dynamic experience for patients. To achieve holistic well-being, this project will explore the concept of designing spaces for physical rehabilitation. Theories of healing spaces will be examined in conjunction with the gradual healing process through mobility and exercise to create a circulation system for a physical rehabilitation center.
Anisa Cenaj
March 11, 2023
5th Place
Prosthetic Enhancement
PROSTHETIC ENHANCEMENT is a case study project that deals with the development of a specific plot in a site, Dreispitz, ripe for heavy transformation. Understanding and accepting the political and economic pressures that plan to raise the effective surface of the plot by 120%, the project looks to minimize its impact on the existing logistics building and preserve with respect the industrial tradition that defined the identity of the site. A light roof is suspended above the building by a new steel structure touching the ground in only 15 points along the front façade. Following a strong structural precept to minimise the intervention and preserve the integrity of the hall, the intervention limits itself to the addition of a new façade and a new roof. Balancing forces as a mean of design in equilibrium, the two structural surfaces are expanded into double-layer elements revealing a space for air circulation working as a regulating medium of comfort for the spaces it envelops. Together, they form an extension that will host rentable spaces for laboratories and artists’ ateliers on top of the existing hall.
Romain Iff
March 20, 2023
6th Place
Solar Steps
Solar Steps explores how thresholds define relationships between residential programs. What architectural interventions can exist between interior and exterior and between domestic and public program? How can thresholds can be pushed and pulled to merge or define layers of separation and create gradient degrees of transparency? This layering of thresholds and inhabited intermediary spaces imagines a dynamic form of collective living where the individual resident’s relationship to their neighbours and to the broader community become at the same time more connected and more flexible: Agency over where and how to draw the boundary between personal and community space is given to the residents themselves.
Nicole Cao
March 26, 2023
7th Place
Tenganan Village Center in Bali
“Architecture is built for the future. But not everyone actually sees the future value inside a traditional village. The future value of traditional villages is way more important as it directly contributes to a sense of place and connection to the past.“ Tenganan Pegringsingan is one of the oldest Balinese villages that still survives today. Before 1970, many anthropologists considered Tenganan is one of the most isolated and secluded societies. However, in 2015, Tenganan went through some village development promoted by the local government to shift from a traditional village into a tourism village. The change then raises problems ranging from spatial problems such as accessibility to regional identity. To overcome the existing problem, the author used the fundamental Balinese traditional philosophy, Tri Hita Karana, as the source of inspiration for the proposed renewal strategy.
Dharma Wijaya
April 23, 2023
8th Place
Deconstructing Beauty -Transformation of the Pallati i Brigadave
Dear citizens of Tirana, At the beginning of the semester we received a letter from the Pallati i Brigadave, who sadly told us about his loneliness and splendid isolation. He feels trapped and powerless to change his condition. After a few conversations with you, we realized that many of you did not know the Palace, or if you did, you did not have an emotional connection with it. We also heard the voices of those who take care of it, which believe that the Palace should be kept as it is. We are convinced that the role of this building has to be rethought in order to start to serve you - the people of this country. Standing empty without serving a purpose to the public is a sad future for the palace. Therefore, we looked for a compromise between keeping the palace protected under a glass bell and opening it completely to the public, we wanted these two expectations to be met. After hearing your stories, we selected the rooms with the most historical and emotional value to stay in their current state, in order to mediate the visitor a narrative and also to reduce the cost of maintenance. The selected rooms and their connection form an instructive path which runs through the building and touches on the history of the Palace, its beauty, as well as its deterioration. In the new voids, which are scattered between the preserved rooms, we filled programs wich you thought should be enhanced in the city. The two realities coexist and overlap, and in both cases one can always catch glimpses of what is happening on the other side. Throughout this transformation we tried to enrich the building and reached a compromise. Through the radical gesture of physically and visually open the palace to the city, you can emotionally (re-)connect to this symbolic building and in addition to give you the opportunity to discover for the first time or rediscover the beauty of the whole Palace. The choices we have made have always tried to respond to your needs as a country as well of those of the city, in all its facets, so that you are a part of the transformation of the Pallati i Brigadave. It is a Palace that has never been a palace, and now it is the time that together we open it to the city and to all those who want to discover its beauty. Sincerely yours, De-constructing Beauty
Deconstructing Beauty
March 20, 2023
9th Place
Solar Neo-Bologna
The city of Calgary has experienced its two largest floods in 2005 and 2013. The two events respectively forced more than 40,000 and 75,000 people to evacuate from their homes, each leaving the city with $75 million and $787 million in infrastructural damages and recoveries. It is hence more critical than ever to leverage architecture and urban design to address some of these recurring challenges and reframe Calgary’s relationship with water.
Ji Song Sun
April 29, 2023
10th Place
The Beirut Lines
With the force of a 3.5 magnitude earthquake, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever occurred on August 4, 2020, 18:08:18 EEST, and it is thought that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate housed in warehouse-12 at the port were the source of the explosion's fuel. In addition to the extensive damage this explosion produced, at least 204 people were killed and 6,500 injured. Above all, Beirut-the capital of Lebanon that was spawned by its harbor as the focal Middle Eastern node point that connected many continents, has been left with a dead Port. For many years, the Beirut port represented more of a barrier than a connection between the city’s communities and its coast. The reconstruction of the port area opens up the opportunity for a pivotal civic gesture that will both catalyse the area and fill the void of active public spaces in the city.
Chee Kin Tan
March 23, 2023
Honorable Mention
Wicked Spaces
In the City of Detroit, a legacy of disinvestment is being met by the glimpse of resurgence. Where new affluence in the downtown core is driving investment into marginalized neighbourhoods still contending with consequences of decades past. For those living on the margins under constant uncertainty of displacement and suppression, prescribed solutions offer little solace. But what if instead, we embrace legacies tied to place and enable autonomy through the strengthening of existing social fabrics? Looking beyond the traditional methodology of mere services offered, the project proposes a new model where diverse community driven interaction strengthens collective engagement. By removing top down governance and instead creating spaces for community organization appropriation we can in one small way help neighbourhoods confront even the most wicked problems of today.
Bruce G
May 2, 2023
Honorable Mention
District 01
District 01 is a visionary project that seeks to bring back the iconic Olivetti design brand to its glory days of the 70s and 80s. Taking inspiration from the Olivetti Valentine typewriter, which was renowned for its stylish design and portability, the project envisions the future of living and working spaces in the context of cloud computing technology and innovative construction methods. Incorporating technologies such as 3D printing and autonomous production, the project proposes a customisable and interchangeable modular housing system that can be configured by the user and built on-site. The use of modular and cross-laminated timber (CLT) construction ensures sustainability targets are met while maintaining quality control through factory assembly. The site, located in Cambridge, serves as a prototype for future satellite sites across the UK. It features an on-site showroom reminiscent of the iconic Olivetti typewriter showrooms, allowing visitors to create unique units with desired modules. The site is also designed to be a technology hub, situated adjacent to the vibrant tech and innovation community of the Silicone Fen, and providing a space for students, researchers, and tech start-ups to collaborate and thrive. Sustainability is at the core of the project, with the site being seamlessly integrated into the local cycle network, and adjoining railway lines being extended within the building for efficient transportation of goods.
James Healey
April 13, 2023
Honorable Mention
Under One Roof: A Home for Women and Children
This project was produced by Olivia Braun and Genevieve Jones for the Architecture Core III Housing Studio: Living Front, led by Erica Goetz at Columbia University GSAPP. The project site lies on the Harlem River Waterfront Bronx, New York City, NY. Sadly, through research we discovered that the Bronx has the largest number of Domestic violence cases in New York City. Domestic violence is also a leading cause of homelessness for women and children. Therefore we chose for our housing project to be a domestic violence shelter - titled Under One Roof: A Home for Women and Children - aiming to manifest healing through the architecture in itself. While the site is isolated, bordered by industry and the river, rather than seeing this as a constraint, we are utilizing it to our advantage and have chosen to accentuate its isolation. We have also intentionally nestled the mass near the ground to ensure privacy and safety for its residents. When determining the mass and form, we developed the building based on our desire for water to selectively infiltrate the building. We found out that through a series of steps, we could filter the river and rain water enough to provide both hydronic heating and cooling as well as physiological healing for the residents. This filtration process begins as we pull river water up from the marsh land beneath the building and filter it through a reverse osmosis system. Next, it's pushed upward and over the copper roof where it will combine with rainwater and trickle throughout the building around designated healing spaces, into reflecting ponds, through radiant supply pipes, and into the swimming pool. While the angled roof shape was originally derived from the water run-off angle, we chose to increase the slope to make it an inhabitable loft-like space. It hosts the private, inward looking sleeping chambers which offer a small, intimate space for residents to rest and retreat. In contrast to the solidity of the sleeping level, the descending living and community levels operate in layers of both privacy and operability. The layers of the envelope compress and expand planimetrically to create a variety of conditions both interior and exterior that respond to the natural environment and the weather. The intention here is to blur the line between inside and outside - and thus reconnect the residents to the natural world where the beauty of the river can be brought into the building and living space can extend outward. Furthermore, by weaving and wrapping the building with these skins, they begin to act as a connective tissue that links the building to its environment, selectively allowing in breeze, sunlight, or even misty rain. While the multilayered envelope acts as enclosure, it also provides the opportunity for customization that gives the residents a sense of agency. These programs can be private or communal depending on how the user chooses to draw the curtains - creating a space for self reflection or to gather in comfort. The typical hard boundaries of an apartment are far different than the overlapping mutable boundaries of these mediating living spaces. In conclusion, we are hoping that this water cycle, coupled with the operable facade system, which together define our living front, will begin to restore both the residents and the environment.
Olivia Braun
March 17, 2023
Honorable Mention
Honorable Mention
New Roots Neighbourhoods
New Roots Neighbourhoods is a development plan that focuses on enhancing livability and inclusiveness in the growing and diverse Pinebush Station Area. The cultural plaza is a gathering space that symbolizes diversity and hosts weekly open-air markets, pedestrian-only streets, and small foreign stores. This plan is targeting multigenerational families and new immigrant, furthermore aim for a more diverse community. The development plan prioritizes pedestrian accessibility and alternative modes of transportation by dividing large superblocks into smaller sections and relocating the parking lot to the back of the development. To further promote a welcoming and visually appealing space, a green corridor designed specifically for pedestrians will be created. This corridor will also provide opportunities for community events, outdoor activities, and social interaction. In order to revitalize the local economy and preserve the area’s industrial history, the development plan includes building affordable housing to increase the local population and provide more housing options for new immigrants. The existing factories can provide employment opportunities for new comers populations while promoting land reuse and economic development. Additionally, the abandoned shipping containers on the factory site can be recycled into temporary spaces for community services, promoting environmental protection and economic growth. The structural material for the development plan will be steel reclaimed from local factories, demolished buildings on-site, and abandoned railways and shipping containers. The cladding material will be reclaimed brick from local factories or demolished buildings. This material is versatile, fire-retardant, maintenance-free, and all-natural. Discarded bricks can be reprocessed in factories and reused. The central community green space will be divided into three major parts: park, exercise, and playground. The creek park at the back of the site can help with flood issues. The building that connects to the station bridge will have numerous community service places such as a library, cultural center, small businesses, restaurants, gym, and clinic. Overall, New Roots Neighbourhoods is a development plan that aims to create a unique and inclusive community that prioritizes sustainability, diversity, and liveability.
Laura Yang
April 20, 2023
Honorable Mention
Rebuild, Reuse, Restored
The Skytop Quarry was once a beautiful piece of land, but after being destroyed by aggregate mining it has been left barren. This project aims to restore the land’s biodiversity by designing an ecological research station that will support its rehabilitation through the building’s systems. This project reimagines the typical field station because this one has a set life span that is dedicated to the process of making the land self-sustaining again. As the land begins to replenish, the building will slowly degrade and be taken over by nature. This restoration process is divided into four phases: Testing, Implementing, Flourishing, and Rewilding. The material palette is entirely biodegradable so when the building degrades, all the materials will add to the biodiversity. The main materials used are timber, mycelium, and limestone which are all manipulated in various ways so they can function differently throughout the building. Once the building is successfully taken over by nature, the quarry will be restored. It is with hope that once the project is completed, humans can re-think about the relationship between man and building and how it can be improved to better help our earth rather than destroy it. Done in collaboration with Charlotte Bascombe
Chloe DeMarco
April 28, 2023
Honorable Mention
Taichung Mediatheque
The main objective of this design is to develop a unique tectonic method and spatial experience in a large-scale building. Typically, large-scale buildings feature a lots of windows and glass as their skin, making people to observe the outside world without understanding the internal system of the building. The program, mediatheque, emphasizes internal resources rather than external surroundings. With this character of the program, a façade has been designed to reduce noise from the main boulevard of the city, which is a important road connected to multiple public transportation, while providing a unique visual experience for the building. Circulation spaces have been placed between the mediatheque space and the façade, acting as a further buffer zone for noise. The circulation spaces that penetrate the stories of the building reveals the internal structure of the building, allowing visitors to experience a stunning scenery and understand a abstract idea of the structure of this building as walk through the space before entering the mediatheque space.
Yung-Chi Liu
March 11, 2023
Honorable Mention
Orthodox spiritual center
In the modern world, there is a tendency to exaggerate the concept of asceticism (in psychological terms). People visit churches and temples less and less frequently, and many are faced with suppression of their sensual desires. Many young people feel uncomfortable in church buildings. The Orthodox spiritual complex, in addition to a residential block with a dining hall and an exhibition space with a cinema, has an educational space that includes a "Transparent Church". Due to the "transparency of its design, it creates and imitates a barrier-free environment of church decoration, thereby helping to overcome discomfort.
Andrew Pavlov
March 11, 2023
Honorable Mention
Up-cycling Great Yarmouth
The project is an up-cycling workshop that will be located on the banks of the River Yare which separates the industrial and residential areas of Great Yarmouth. The project will be designed to create a sense of community and bridge the social and visual gap between industrial and residential areas of the city.
Peiran Sun
March 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
From Fractals to Fabrication: Discovering a Novel Method for Grid-Shell Design
This is an architectural master's project that takes a deep dive into the fascinating world of fractals, and how a their study can enhance the built environment. With a passion for mathematics and a deep curiosity for the natural world, the aim of this project was to explore the relationship between geometry and modern fabrication techniques. As the research progressed, it became evident that fractal geometry holds a wealth of opportunity for digital design, particularly in the development of beautiful grid-shells. By using minimal surfaces and geodesic curves, the study led to the discovery of a novel method of generating grid-shells that are both aesthetically pleasing and efficient. Additionally, the process of increasing the surface area non-uniformly helped gain a deeper understanding of how to add complexity to grid-shells while maintaining their performance. Grid-shells are not only incredibly efficient, but also visually stunning when designed well. This project offers a glimpse into what the future of grid-shell construction could look like, and has even inspired further research into the application of Japanese Kagome Weaving techniques. The ambition for this project is also to encourage a deeper appreciation for the beauty and efficiency of grid-shells as light-weight structures in the built environment. The full project can be found here: tinyurl.com/Prokariopolis Supplementary project research can be found here: tinyurl.com/fractal-dimensions tinyurl.com/developing-fractals tinyurl.com/gridshell-form-finding
Nick Leung
February 26, 2023
Honorable Mention
NBV Library
The North Bay Village Project proposal aims to provide the residents a shared space for recreation, education and civic pride that conveys the identity of the city while also reclaiming the bayfront value of the property in terms of recreation, native ecosystems, and wildlife diversity.
Barbara Camelia
March 25, 2023
Honorable Mention
LOOP
Team: Ana Clara Cavalcante Luca Augusto Gustavo Zorzeto Ana Paula Gomes Otávio de Souza Caio Frederico e Silva Renan Balzani Through the holistic lens of nature, waste is a mercurial concept. In a cyclical dance, living things preserve the dynamic stability that colors the Earth. From plants to fungi, and back, resources are continually transformed and passed on, but never wasted. Notwithstanding, fervent as it is, urbanization has long evoked a different picture. In Brazil (and in many countries alike), this scenario is especially conspicuous, as waste disposal remains largely unregulated and inadequately handled. Accordingly, the loop reframes the avail of human overflow. Inspired by long-established natural mechanisms, it intends to shelter the most affected ones: garbage pickers. Leaflike, it mainly runs on sunlight and rainwater, while wastewater and organic residues are harnessed through methanogenesis for water heating and stove power. The slightly warped envelope is mostly based on natural and recycled materials, thus it not only enables a sustainable building but it fosters scavenging as a fruitful activity in modern society. Furthermore, along with providing adequate housing, the loop's uses are manifold; its versatile layout may assume diverse functions according to the inhabitants preferences, ranging from a repair shop to a handicraft atelier. Hence, this design proposal paves the way for a mindful landscape, in which both resources and humans are encompassed by the all-around loop of things.
Ana Cavalcante
April 10, 2023
Honorable Mention
Barcelona Red Box
The city of Barcelona has always been the center of great architectural development since it has established. It has gone through unnumerable changes over time and it could be said that it is an ever evolving city, especially along its shoreline. In this sense, the project aims to serve as a focal point for both cities, renovating an underdeveloped and isolated area into the next Barcelona landmark.
Barbara Camelia
March 25, 2023
Honorable Mention
6th Industry Fishery House
As part of the revival plan for Momonoura in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, which was largely destroyed in 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the proposal will be a 6th industry fishery house. It has lunch space for local and visitors, a small market to buy sea fish, oyster product and fishing tool shop. The main idea is to creatively use the new catch sea fishes, which are usually not suitable to sell in the city fish market as specialty to attract the outsider. The building is located in the center of the village, near the sea wall, in front of the entrance to the pier. It serves as a new communal center and nexus between residential area of the high place and seaside working area. Its two-stories high volume reclaim the view of the sea blocked by the seawall.
Xingyu He
March 29, 2023
Honorable Mention
Nourish: The Collective Mosaic
by Mara Acosta and Emilio Gonzales _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ The City of Brampton is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Canada, with an average population growth rate of approximately 4.0% annually between 2001 and 2016. Census data reveals the story of an ageing population, showing a steady growth in its senior population rising 40% between 2011 and 2016. Indicating a population that thoroughly enjoys the community they live in, and a need for more spaces and infrastructure that supports the idea of ageing in place. Sitting between the cusp of Bramalea’s Central Park Neighbourhood, as well as the Bramalea City Centre Mall, Nourish proposes a housing model that seeks to form spaces that promote residential autonomy, and opportunities for economic growth by providing spaces which encourage a flexible means of economic gain through the public market hall, as well as urban farming greenhouses situated at the top of the market. The building enables spaces of opportunity for the community to nurture themselves and one another: economic growth from the market hall/cafe, garden that gives access to food, and spaces to gather and host events that allow them to connect with their surrounding community. To further build on the neighbourhood’s desire for more public greenspace, the design extends into a public woonerf which sits adjacent to the building’s active market hall. The building’s bifold façade doors on the ground floor open directly to the woonerf, connecting the active market hall and producing a series of shared spaces that allow movement within and connect to the community internally and externally.
Emilio Gonzales
April 3, 2023
Honorable Mention
Architecture between land and water_Contamination
The thesis develops a project proposal for Santa Fe, the first port city of Argentina located on the Rio Paranà. Its origin and location are deeply connected to water. Along its coast, one can perceive the original importance of this triangle of land located between the Paranà and the Salado, a strategic territory of exchange between the railways that innervated the pampa and the river connections with the important cities of this South American area. Here, alongside the city's confused attempts to rethink its role, the large port machinery resonates with the 19th-century stations and together, in their deterioration, tell of the progressive loss of the fortune of the place. However, the unstable and sometimes dramatic relationship between water and land remains as the formal matrix of the collective space. Here the great Avenida constitutes a limit between the city and the port while the water becomes a liquid threshold between the port and the barrio of Altoverde, increasing divisions and diversity, both social and economic. Between these two elements, the port area is proposed as a place of possible relationships, offering opportunities for the rediscovery of ancient ties to the history of the city. The thesis, therefore, investigates specific aspects of the relationship of the port with the historical heritage, the settlement pattern, and the landscapes of the river, prefiguring new possible destinies. Artifice and nature, city, and river have always been the backbone of the Argentine territory. These two different landscapes deeply characterize the city of Santa Fe. The man-made landscape consists mainly of three textures. The city made up of a checkerboard layout is a regular saturated design that is broken up by the railway network, the port with its confused texture that is made up of certain and uncertain spaces, accessible and inaccessible, characterized by the presence of large port buildings, finally High green, a complex structure of endless labyrinths and corridors without sidewalks that intertwine with the buildings of ranchos very close together. This artificial landscape contrasts with the natural one, the large river system characterized by an ever-changing landscape made up of water and earth, which by withdrawing alternately blurs the same horizontal line in different ways, transforming the landscape into intertwining lines, islands that sink and always re-emerge diverse, changing yet ancestral scenarios. It is between these two great systems that the project fits. The proposal is to define a spatial device capable of holding the different landscapes together and having a perception of them, a unitary place where the different types of public space manage to build a continuous system, made up of nature, water, and artifice, which unites the three entities while maintaining their autonomy and landscape, in a single space that balances the relationship between the city and the original land.
Stefania Leonetti
March 7, 2023
Honorable Mention
Adaptive Socio-cultural EpiCentre
The project is a new representation of libraries in the MENA region, offered to all people without the need of using transportation. The project was inspired by a personal experience, as it was noticed that people in the MENA region can hardly go to libraries by walking, as it is far from their homes. In other words, libraries are not accessible to different categories of people such as children, elderlies, and people with disabilities. The project is divided into two main functions; the library and the cultural research centre that studies the cultural aspect of the site and supports the library. The solution started from the site selection that was based mainly on the distance which the average person can walk without taking a rest and it was 1.6 km (between 15-20 minutes walking) to reach the site. The project started from Jawa,Amman, people in Jawa expressed the necessity of providing socio-cultural activities. In Amman, in general, there were many problems that people mentioned regarding the library and how it is not safely reachable by all people. The project meant to be adaptive which means led to create a solution that can be replicated in each site that has the same problem in MENA region. The project is based on its sustainable core – which is part of the library - that represents a flexible and enjoyable journey that the client will have to make the project active 24 hours. Moreover, it is the link between other functions of the design. When moving up, the noise become less increasingly. Mainly the project is designed in concrete and steel. Using different materials than those commonly used in Jawa to propose a new image and to bring attention and curiosity about the project. Towards justice of sustainability. Besides trying to solve the far distance between libraries and neighborhoods in the MENA region, and trying to achieve architectural justice by making the project replicable in all sites that have the same issue in MENA, the project tries to be a nature-friendly, green, and sustainable project. There are many techniques and methods that were implemented in the project to help achieve that. It focuses on five main points: 1- Water Efficiency Creating two devices to collect rain throughout the year that are suitable for the project’s design and the amount of water that needs to be collected. 2- Greenery A plants’ map was created related to the site to study the nature around it and to try planting plants that grow in Amman’s Climate besides creating hydroponic walls that help achieve good air quality and gives some aesthetics to the project. 3- Light and Ventilation Two light devices were invented in this project to catch the natural light and not rely on artificial light only. In order to reduce glare, slats of fabric were used inside these devices. 4- Indoor Environmental Quality Thermal comfort quality was achieved by choosing the right type of glass and the number of its layers and by choosing a radiant floor heating system. The climate-protected loggia with single and double glazing also helps a lot to create a high level of air quality inside the project. 5- Thermal and Electrical Power Solar tiles and solar collectors were used in the project. "Equity is a solution for addressing imbalanced social systems. Justice can take equity one step further by fixing the systems in a way that leads to long-term, sustainable, equitable access for generations to come."
Dana Ibrahim
April 29, 2023
Honorable Mention
soft, softer, softest
What is softness? We can understand the tangible qualities of softness and we’ve all interacted with soft elements in our lives. But what is the representation of softness and how can we design for it? This project is a visual conversation that attempts to communicate and define the term "soft" in an architectural context. It's a primitive and naive aesthetic that tries to question the ongoing conversation of thickness by adding thinness to the conversation. As building construction and related industries contribute to nearly 40% of green house gasses every year, anything goes as to where the future of building construction will hurdle towards. We can consider materials such as fabrics or polymers which are easier to recycle and less carbon intensive to produce. When the building industry was developing more efficient methods of producing steel, concrete and glass, textiles and polymer sheets have been both improved in durability and reliability. This project is far from a prediction of the future, but just an ongoing conversation to ask the real question: "is there potential to this?"
Charles Kim
April 7, 2023
Honorable Mention
কল - অন্ত ADAPTIVE REUSE OF AMIN JUTE MILLS COMPLEX
Amin Jute Mill is a government owned jute mill complex located in Sholoshohor, Chittagong. The mill was originally established by Maulana Amin, a Pakistani millionaire in 1954. Within 17 years the mill grew and eventually formed a large worker's community making a local name for the site which it still carries ‘Amin gate’. After the independence in 1971, the site was taken as enemy land and went under the newly formed Bangladesh Government. The mill kept on running under the supervision of BJMC and the community continued to grow out of the site. In 2020, all government Jute mills were decommissioned and today a part of the 70-year-old site is abandoned. Soon after the decommission most of the workers migrated out and with the mills closed, the site is now quiet, lifeless, and purposeless. Although the complex was constructed outside of the city back in 1954, today the city expanded and the settlements around the site are surrounded from all four sides. Within this gray jungle, the site stands with 80 acres of breathing green topography. Now abandoned and with no plans declared by the government, the site is waiting to be taken over by the surroundings to construct residential and commercial buildings, robbing the neighbor of the only chance of having a green space in the context. Sholoshohor is an area where civil amenities and green open spaces for the public are absent. This gives the project the perfect opportunity to repurpose and rethink the area for public use. This project aims to revive this abandoned site with robust urban energy serving the surrounding neighbor's needs through adaptive reuse and repurposing of the jute mill complex.
JUNAED ABU SAIF
April 21, 2023
Honorable Mention
Loch on Wood
The site is situated 500m south-east of Lochwinnoch, Scotland. It is comprised of a beautiful loch, a small trail system, and many species of birds. The visitors centre is currently run by extremely dedicated RSPB volunteers. The current visitors centre is extremely outdated, providing minimal learning experience from the interior space, and lacking the frontage to bring in new customers. The main obstacle to the site was merging the priorities of people and birds, not allowing one to faulter in favour of the other. Loch on Wood is the result of these factors, combining aspects from the brief, site analysis, and precedents. Loch on Wood will provide birds a sanctuary to roam in while allowing people to engage in some of the most beautiful wildlife Scotland has to offer.
Dylan Baliski
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
Urban Forestry Knowledge Center
The Urban Forestry Knowledge Center (UFKC) is a proposed center focused on education, research and the growth of genetically modified trees that can endure the threats of a changing climate. This long-timber building is essentially a place to develop climate mitigation strategies based on urban reforestation and is situated in the Dow’s Lake/experimental farm area in Ottawa. The UFKC is comprised of workshops, meeting rooms, research laboratories, as well as a circulating greenhouse dedicated to growing tree seedlings. The project also includes a permaculture landscaping strategy for growing experimental seedlings and promoting the return of biodiversity through the use of wetlands and follies. Project was conducted by Carleton University, under the first semester of the MArch Gateway Studio.
Karen Trivino
April 30, 2023
Honorable Mention
Synergistic: The Interaction Between the Past and Future.
- If you lived in 1999 in Abu Dhabi you would have seen those buildings everywhere until you see those new modern glass high-rise buildings and towers start taking into shaping the city view. You can see how those modernist buildings represent the history of Abu Dhabi, what functions they serve and why should we preserve them. They connect to the historical aspect of the city design in Abu Dhabi and the preservation of architecture, heritage, and culture of the country and land itself. - The main function of the Central Bus Station is transporting workers and visitors using buses from Abu Dhabi to the rest of the emirates. Should we preserve the function of transportation? How about if this building is preserved for the next 10 years, you can't turn a blind eye to the future and economical aspect of Abu Dhabi with the advanced technology that will take over soon. The 2030 Abu Dhabi masterplan that included metro lines, was all located on certain points focusing on infrastructure, which will require a station for each node or point. - The metro station will encourage public use, infrastructure plays a role in its placement, economy boost, safety risk management induced, the increase of public buildings, but mainly to reduce traffic and carbon emission from vehicles. Buses are on four wheels and they hover in the street which creates more traffic than we can imagine. I believe in the future the buses will be less used and the metros will be heavily used. The bus stops will stay but not as much as the UAE is trying to invest in metros and railways as a serpent line as entity to the transportation smart plan framework. - When we come back to the original point, if the building have certain daily users or elements, the architecture will be replaced at one point. When it's going to be replaced it is going to be removed as an entity but still serves under the same condition, under one notion, one idea, a transportation hub. The function is the same, and even more advanced than the previous building, therefore the purpose of the old building is never replaced, just a more parametric facilitated building. - Synergistic is a multi-modal transportation hub that merges a metro station, bus station, and taxi stop coming together for the 2030 future of Abu Dhabi and connecting the busy urban context of Al Wahda Area of past Central Bus Station. The metro station epitomizes a pedestrian-friendly station and aims to preserve the old central bus station. The project proposal includes having a metro station as a transportation hub in the middle of downtown Abu Dhabi as a challenging context. The focus is redefining the relationship between preserving the past and history of the UAE with the future vision that we want to capture for a better forthcoming with the 2030 Abu Dhabi Master Plan. For the full project please check https://www.behance.net/gallery/132899445/Architecture-Graduation-Project-Synergistic
Duaa AlRifai
March 18, 2023
Honorable Mention
A History In Brick
Sited in the historic Manchester neighborhood of Manhattan, I sought to reimagine, and revitalize what in meant to "fit in" to this historic neighborhood. Rather than elect to use the traditional model of the rowhouse in this effort, I noticed the uneven brickwork along the various party walls throughout the site. Within these party walls are uneven, messy brickwork, scars of sister buildings that stand no more. Through the extrusion of these wonderful imperfections, I sought to breathe new life into the masonry.
Cassidy Van Ness
April 11, 2023
Honorable Mention
37 Chioschi a Milano: a Catalogue
ABOUT This “Focus Work” was conducted during the Winter Semester 2020 by Chiara De Libero and Maria Margherita Innocenti with the support of the Chair of History and Theory of Urban Design of Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete at ETH Zurich. PROJECT DESCRIPTION The urban space is occupied and defined by countless small architectures which, perhaps because of their modest size and humble character, have over time become undisputed elements of the city, to the point that one hardly notices their existence anymore. Among these microarchitectures, the kiosk is particularly interesting, not only for its architectural and social value, but perhaps above all for the urban one. As the smallest "building" in the city, it offers room for only one person inside, being at the same time among the most public spaces of all. It positions itself decisively in strategic urban points and gives life to important nodes of encounter and exchange. Free of any boundaries that separate the inside from the outside or the public from the private, the kiosk invites the passerby to approach, stop by and chat, giving back a significant sense of city and community. Living in Milan for some months we encountered many of these fascinating little structures and admired the phenomenon of the kiosk very closely. We became firmly convinced of its vital importance in the city, and recognized on the one hand the need to reinvent its shape and redefine its role in today’s society and on the other hand the urgency to safeguard existing structures of considerable aesthetic, historical or cultural value. In order to do this, it is essential to understand the phenomenon of the kiosk more deeply, to comprehend the reasons for its history and shape, to know how to read its role in the city with more precision. For this reason we felt the need to create this catalogue, which documents and studies 37 kiosks of the city of Milan. The selection of these objects is to a certain extent subjective, guided from our personal intuitions, influenced from our preferences, and shaped from the desire to tell certain stories more than others. We have dedicated much more attention, for example, to the structures close to disappearance. In this instinctive process, however, we have also tried to select the objects in such a way that they reflect the diversity of their forms and history.
Maria Margherita Innocenti
March 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
THE CUBAN SQUARE RENOVATION PROJECT - INTERSECTION FOR INTERACTION
Team members: Nina Avdalyan, Ivane Gventsadze Thought and imagined as the new heart of the Cuban capital, the current state of Plaza de la Revolución is way far from that reality. Nowadays, the whole context represents an isolated and underused area, lived only a few times per year. This immense concrete surface that was once a lively place, has neither been able to evolve in time, nor been capable of reinventing itself to host possible new urban programs. Laying inert and unused most of the time Plaza de la Revolución has become a sort of “public void” where tourists just step by to take the classic picture with Che Guevara’s mural on the background, to then go back to the beach. The conceptual integrity of the new square's role as a linkage between old and new Havana is based on the superimposition of the urban grids of both parts, creating a multidimensional system of paths connecting the three levels of the square and a complex of solids, two of which serve as a platform for hot air balloon trips to the historical and modern parts of the city and act as a metaphor for unity. By preserving some of its concrete surfaces as artifacts, Plaza de la Revolucion is being honored for its role as a spark for the reformatory era in Cuban history. The technique of using the descent to defamiliarize the public void and make visitors see the square in a new way, pointing out the hidden beauty of the plain surface previously neglected by everyone, solves the noise pollution problem of the area, alongside sheltering people in windy weather. The perimeter staircase serves as an observation belt, marking the original form of the plaza, navigating the shift from concrete jungle to the rediscovered oasis in the middle of the city. This greenery helps cool the area, reduce energy use, improve air quality, enhance the local biodiversity and serves as a shaded playground for all sorts of activities with the option of solid sites. Whereas, during the wet season, the focus shifts to the solids as a shelter from inclement weather with specific integrated activities and green surroundings, transforming the plaza into the primary public area of the city.
vano gvencadze
April 19, 2023
Honorable Mention
Hiding Meadow
Hiding Meadow creates a distinct microclimatic contrast between the surface condition and subterranean depth by juxtaposing opposing climatic, textural, and temporal qualities. While the tall-grass meadow appears homogeneous from the surface, visitors discover a series of underground pools only upon physically approaching their edges, creating recurring moments of revelation and surprise as ordered and rectilinear geometry bursts unexpectedly through an otherwise wild and organic landscape. Formed from offshore alluvial deposits, over time wind, current, floods, and erosion, in combination with land reclamation, hard-shore construction, channeling, Indigenous activity, and colonisation, have shaped and reshaped the Toronto Islands over the centuries. Drawing from the layered influence of the natural, human, and historical forces on the site, the project investigates themes of depth, inhabitation, and temporality, drawing attention to our connection to the land, and by extension, our connection to history, asking: what is hidden underneath our feet, invisible to the surface eye?
Nicole Cao
March 26, 2023
Honorable Mention
Voxel in the Grove
Voxel in the Grove proposes a multi-family affordable housing complex in West Coconut Grove built entirely of a hybrid Southern Yellow Pine, 5ply CLT and Glulam column structure. A voxelized mass would surround a communal courtyard, with small terraces connected by metal catwalks on upper levels, creating an exterior circulation to access most of the units. The 16 differently shaped units within give a range of options, providing a village like space nestled into the forest-like structure, creating a diverse community in the complex, one which promoted diverse interactions between its inhabitants. Rather than randomly “pixelating/voxelizing” the mass of the structure, the anatomy of a tree was used to base the form of pixelation. The first floor would be the “trunks,” pulled back and split into separate masses, creating large spaces punctured by glulam columns, as if one was walking through the forest. The second floor would extend significantly out over the first, as if they were the base branches, the thickest ones that extend the most. The third floor, while still branching out would be “thinned” out, much like the branches of a tree when you go up. The fourth floor would house a roof terrace, with very little mass, reflecting the canopy of a tree. A recycled engraved steel facade cladding would envelope the wooden structure, which combined with the metal catwalks for exterior circulation would flip the typical narrative of steel being used for structure and wood for cladding/ornamentation. The panels themselves will have pixelated images of the southern yellow pine forests where the wood was sourced engraved on them. The image itself would be split into four different “levels,” so that as you go up the floors, it is also as if you’re rising through the trees in the forest. To create the diverse range of unit types, a system of panels was devised and placed along the 9’ 9” grid (tailored specifically to account for the standard CLT panel dimensions) created for the mass of the building. Walls were strategically placed to create rooms, thus shaping the different unit layouts. This was done instead of creating a repetitive system, to be able to provide the diversity in unit shapes and thus create an organic, almost grown pixelation of the plan. This can be seen almost as creating “impracticality” instead of being “practical” and using a modular material in an un-modular way, showing that as long as you have a set system of panel “blocks” and someone willing to think it through, you don’t have to resort to a standard, repetitive system of using a wood load bearing/columnated structure. Wood is a material that is full of life, full of unpredictability, and here it would be used as such to create spaces that reflect that life.
Catalina Cabral-Framinan
March 27, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Wall after the War Empathy and improvisation for early design students.
This research project is an investigation of how empathy could be used as a tool to facilitate spatial understanding and generation in early design pedagogy. Through a process of continuous iteration and improvisation, students evaluate the impact of the designs in a post-war context. To encourage divergent thinking students were encouraged to practice flexibility towards the design by keeping an open-ended outcome throughout the process. We live in an era where social media is a main source of information and data is widely available from questionable sources often normalizing hatred, fear, and dehumanization. Through empathy students were able to place themselves into the project not only as the designers but as users in the space. The methodologies used will be presented through a process of playfulness, mindfulness and improvisation over a 4-week design project. This project challenges students to design three spaces of healing nested into a wall volume. The wall serves as the host and site to the healing journey, it is their own definition of complex masses of destruction and occupation left behind after the War. Each space is required to offer a unique light quality, diffused/direct/chromatic, reflecting on their understandings of emotions through light and shadow in a journey through a wall. Removing all preassigned notions of what the spaces are anticipated end result, proving that good design decisions do not always require preparation. The project prompts students to deal with interstitial spaces of healing nested into the wall while generating a matrix of hidden chronicles. The trauma towards the citizens and culture becomes a series of voids in the volume and opportunities for healing spaces. This project is a contribution to all citizens of the world living under occupation and healing from the trauma of destruction. “I cannot know your name, Nor can you know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.” Woods, L. (1997).
Hala Barakat
March 12, 2023
Honorable Mention
Environmental Awareness Center at Haputale -Thriving Among Verdant-
-Thriving Among Verdant- The design for an environmental awareness center in Haputale, Sri Lanka identifies the clear and impactful problem of pine tree overgrowth in the region and proposes an innovative and effective solution. Extensive research on the negative impacts of pine trees on the environment, as well as alternative tree species and sustainable construction techniques, informs the design. The center aims to completely remove pine trees from the region and replace them with alternative species such as jack and Kumbuk within the next 30 years, addressing the negative impacts of pine trees such as drying water sources, halting underplanting, and degrading soil quality. The center combines technology and sustainable construction techniques to create a unique and interactive learning experience for the community. It aims to educate the community about the negative impacts of pine trees on the environment and teach them how to grow and care for alternative trees. Through residential workshops and activities, the center also provides job opportunities and skills training for the community. Built using a modular system and inspired by the skeleton of a tea factory, a familiar structure in the community, the center is constructed with discarded railway lines and materials from surrounding tea factories, minimizing its environmental footprint. The units are raised off the ground to encourage under planting and preserve the natural surroundings. In the design phase, the arrangement of the modules was carefully considered with the locations of the trees on the site, ensuring that no trees needed to be cut down during construction. The complex consists of three cores: an activity core with movable modules for workshops, exhibitions, and lectures; an administration core; and an accommodation core. The use of pine wood and wood panels made from sawdust, as well as steel corrugated sheets from tea factory roofs, adds to the sustainability of the design. The modules are powered by solar panels, providing a clean and renewable energy source for locomotion on railway lines. Upon completion of the pine tree removal program, the center will be converted into an adventure basecamp and an entry point to the nearby bird sanctuary. It will also serve as a wildlife information and education center, providing further opportunities for nature enthusiasts and educational experiences for the community. In addition, the center's involvement of the community in its construction and operation helps to preserve the existing culture of the Haputale community and uplift their lives while living harmoniously with the natural environment. This design demonstrates critical thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as originality and relevance to the community. Its impact on users is multifaceted: it provides education and job opportunities that uplift the lives of the community, while also preserving and protecting the natural environment and promoting eco-tourism in the region. The combination of innovation, sustainability, and human interactivity makes this design a valuable addition to the community and a model for similar projects in the future.
Shikara Silva
April 11, 2023
Honorable Mention
Humanising Energy in Crisis - Dolomatic Lime Industry Facilitation Centre, Sri Lanka
In all parts of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted an immediate emergency leading to an economic and energy crisis. None the less, Sri Lanka has experienced this calamity following the worldwide pandemic, causing the income-generating industries to stall.
Sanggavi Thomas
March 13, 2023
Honorable Mention
(In)visibility in the Rio de Janeiro necropolis: space for memory and reflection in the killing city
The idea of the project stems from the intention of creating a space for memory and reflection regarding the theme of necropolitics (a concept by philosopher Achille Mbembe) in Rio de Janeiro. Bearing in mind the issue of invisibility, necropolitics and the occupation of a space of power, this work proposes a temporary installation at Praça XV (XV Square, a major space located in the central region) that symbolically constitutes itself as a manifest space against necropolitics in Rio de Janeiro and that builds an articulated narrative that makes the viewer aware of the political and social context in which it operates. The project was implemented in grid layout and occupies the space between the Imperial Square and a fountain built by Mestre Valentim, a great artist of the 18th century. The grid represents the modern reasoning criticized by Mbembe, who argued that the Enlightenment thought established a modus operandi that legitimized the discourse of violence for the sake of order. The grid was designed based on the measurements of the current Imperial Square (approximately 30m x 90m, with a patio measuring 15m x 18m). From the grid, the elements were arranged to create an artificial, rigid and ordered nature. That nature (waterfall, river, sea and mist) is mainly composed of a red fluid that represents blood and which, in turn, embodies many symbolisms, mainly violent death. Nature refers to the landscape of Rio de Janeiro and its strength, and its artificiality represents the idea of sovereign power delimiting a cycle that should be natural, just like the cycle of life. Thus, that stiffened flow alludes to the idea that sovereignty does not entitle people to have control over their own lives. The project aims to provoke sensations such as discomfort and disorientation and, therefore, lead the spectator to assume an active attitude towards the space in which he transits. In this way, an attempt is made to establish an interval, a break necessary to give space for reflection, which is so important that people can understand their position within society and the environment in which they live. A system of tubular structures was chosen as the main method of construction of the architectural project, as it presents an almost chaotic lightness and translucency. The material configures and delimits the entire intervention space and serves as a support for directing the red fluid. By means of the grid, support points formed by a scaffolding structure are arranged, and those points form, in their core, translucent cubes that contain the red fluid at various heights. Those points are arranged at grid intersections and represent human bodies intercepted by necropolitics. Each point also serves as a support for people to pay homage by pasting photos and writing names of victims of the necropolis. In addition, each of the 28 points is named with dates that represent some emblematic events that reveal the role of necropower in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Those dates represent milestones such as the period of slavery, the military dictatorship, cases such as the murder of city councilor Marielle Franco, in addition to some of the main massacres and other violent events. The support points hold a structure that follows the 15m x 15m grid consisting of a tubular structure (box truss 50) and has, inside, channels that carry the red fluid from the fountain to the waterfall. That structure is arranged 2 meters above the ground in order to cause a feeling of proximity and discomfort on the passersby. The waterfall, in turn, is located in the courtyard of the Imperial Square and is structured by a cube of scaffolding. The fluid flows down the waterfall, follows a sheet of water that represents the river and which is contained by two rows of scaffolding arranged 2 meters apart, and continues towards the fountain, where it flows into a space that once was the sea, in order to represent the arrival of violence through that space. Finally, the red fluid returns through the channels that follow the grid, resuming the cycle. At the end of each cycle, at each moment of arrival and departure of ferries from the Praça XV station, the channel structure disperses water droplets in the air and creates a dense mist that takes over the entire pavilion by means of sprinklers. That water vapor transforms the so defined and stable structure into an architecture that is almost dematerialized, unstable, transitory and without significant weight. Furthermore, it makes the boundaries fuzzy and the vision blurred so that a process of dissolution and disintegration ensues. It is, therefore, a hybrid object in its essence that interacts with the fields of architecture (as infrastructure), sculpture (as object and symbology) and performance (in its ephemerality, noise and representation). In this way, the final act of each cycle represents the transience of life and, at the same time, disorientation becomes the rule and demonstrates how necropower, despite operating in orderly ways, is diffused in the eyes of society. Architecture poses itself as a tool for social and political revelation.
Oscar Tanomaru
February 8, 2023
Honorable Mention
Fungus Among Us by M. Chartier-Primeau & E. Nigro
Unfolding into a playful, ever-growing network of friendly mushroom like objects, Fungus Among Us can be inhabited in multiple ways. These shapes take the form of giant umbrellas, collective sun-bathing lounge chairs, or performing stages set in the city fabric. The wooden structures, composed of bended slats shaped using a simple steaming technique, transforms the urban hardscape into a soft and organic playground inspired by nature. (Designers: Marc-Antoine Chartier-Primeau Eliana Nigro)
Eliana Nigro
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
RSPB Lochwinnoch Visitor Centre and Nature Reserve
RSPB Lochwinnoch Visitor Centre is located just 20 miles south-west of Glasgow, in Scotland, UK and is easily accessible by road and rail. The aim of the new RSPB visitor centre proposal is to provide a connection between the visitors and nature. The main focus was to make sure the building blended in with its surrounding environment, in order to not disturb the local wildlife. To achieve this, the design of the building has followed aspects of the surrounding land and site. It uses environmentally friendly materials such as larch cladding, which over time as it weathers, will turn silvery grey to merge into the surrounding environment. Differing larch timber slats have been placed on the cladding of the building and covers some of the window glazing. This reduces the glare from the glass and it also works alongside the UV bird protection glass to stop birds from flying into the windows. The timber screening also helps to hide bird watchers from the wildlife and provides some shading from direct sun light. The outdoor welcome space creates a transition from the main busy road/car park to the entrance of the building. This has created the opportunity for a safe place for young children to take part in outdoor learning activities. This approach has provided a calm and peaceful entrance space which will not disrupt the wildlife and overall creates a closer connection with nature. Utilising a range of methods including recycling rain water for utility use and choosing low energy consumption heating systems, along with passive ventilation where possible, maximises the buildings regenerative and sustainability potential.
Jessica Buckett
April 30, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Permeable
The key concept of the ‘primitive hut’, which started with Laugie's illustration, can be seen as a 'physical representation of the value needed for architecture in the present era'. If so, the value needed for our densely populated city in 2022 will be a transition to a new spatial relationship. The 'permeable' space will bring new relationships while maintaining the current density of the city that can not changable. The site is located at the Eungbong Mountain, where nature and cities / past and present intersect, is a space that requires "permeable relationship" in a macro context, and the program of a charnel house, which has been denied and rejected so far, is a space that requires "permeable relationship" in a micro context. The project creates new visitors to the site where the use was low, and the space between the divided mass is a memorial park, which becomes a space where people's space and people's flow occur. In addition, the facade, which has a certain thickness, itself becomes a charnel house, a shelf, and a bench, and extends it to the outside of the behavioral roll such as ceremonial and rest, which have been limited to the inside. The wall is no longer a solid boundary and becomes a third space to create new values.
JAHYEON KIM
March 13, 2023
Honorable Mention
TAHUAMPA EDGE(less): The Iquitos Waterfront as a strip and continuity
The conditions in which Amazonian cities, especially Iquitos, come into contact with the natural elements surrounding them are poor and in many cases nonexistent. The "edges", boundaries between two different zones (Lynch, 1960), in these cases are very marked, and usually generate barriers between two sectors of society: one that is articulated to the more urban dynamics, and another, linked more to the temporalities of the rivers, that is, to natural dynamics. In a way, it is possible to argue that an urban element, especially those conceived as public spaces such as the Waterfront, only widens social gaps in a city, even preventing the articulation of the inhabitants with the rivers and other possible ecosystems present in that context. The definition, therefore, of what is now known as Waterfront, is nothing more than a very "western" conception imposed on the territorial characteristics of the Amazon, as it does not consider in its design or extension the complexity of each of the rivers in the region, specifically the variability of the environment due to the annual change in the level of these, that is, the recurrent seasons of low-water and high-water. However, the interest in the research project does not arise solely as the search for a solution at the urban level, but also intends to involve landscape concepts to the complexity of a specific public space design. As mentioned earlier, the problem in the sector is not only the poor articulation between two sectors of society, divided by a Waterfront, but also the poor contact that both sectors maintain with the different possible aquatic ecosystems in the Amazon, many of these lost and nonexistent due to the horizontal expansion of the city. Thus, the project starts from both urban, territorial and natural variables, for the conception of an ideal public space for the Amazon. This is where the concept of "tahuampa" stands out, a natural space defined between the water of the rivers and the canopy of the trees, used as a reference in each sector and space of the project. In this way, the main objective of the research project is to reincorporate the natural dynamics of as many aquatic ecosystems as possible, into the urban dynamics of the city, through the articulation of the Amazonian edges, specifically the Waterfront. In addition, parallel objectives to the main one will be: a) to understand the conception of existing edges in Amazonian cities such as Iquitos, their failures, and their relationship with other urban elements; b) to relocate the existing housing in vulnerable areas into new housing clusters that generate neighborhoods in constant relation with water dynamics and resulting ecosystems, and that allow the necessary permeability that the new Waterfront requires for its proper functioning; and c) to demonstrate that the "tahuampa" is a concept that can provide a local and territorial character to the projective exploration of new public spaces for the Amazon under a landscape and ecosystem reintegrating approach. In this way, it is expected to carry out a project that solves both the articulation and habitability in a public space specific to the Amazon, that presents spaces for concentration of activities, contemplation of ecosystems and urban and territorial connection, as well as demonstrating a paradigm shift in the concept of edge, which becomes understood as a strip and continuity, no longer a line and a limit between two differentiated sectors. The project is designed to be applied in different similar Amazonian contexts, where the urgency of natural spaces is imminent and solutions are sought for their edges.
Herman Acosta
April 17, 2023
Honorable Mention
Food & Cultural Centre: A new version of Toronto's shopping Centre
With the increase in global migration, the notion of cultural identity is now no longer attached to a single place or time and is a continuous process of re-making. Similar to the concept of translating recipes, re-constructing identities is now no longer attached to or based on their origin. It adapts itself by incorporating new elements of meaning with a blend of social practices while re-drafting the old, thus, forming a cultural mosaic. Due to the complex cultural blend of diverse ethnicities and evolving social fabric, it becomes an essential reason for people to better understand and empathize with the traditions and food customs of diverse ethnocultural groups living together. For many immigrants living around the world, having a home-cooked meal of dishes from their home countries are truly a blessing. Considering the possibility that many of the immigrants get to visit their countries after a long time, these meals hold deep cultural and sentimental values. Hence, this project, "explores the role of food and art in preserving the cultural identity of South Asian Immigrants and their future generations in Canada". Thorncliffe Park, a neighborhood in Toronto, also known as the “arrival city” is an example of the earliest form of such a culturally diverse settlement wherein immigrants from various countries have lived together as a single close-knit community in one of the first high-rise residential apartments in Toronto. These families include nuclear families, joint families as well as different families living together and sharing a single unit. “People who can’t afford a two- or three-bedroom apartment are living in a one- or two-bedroom apartment.” (Monsebraaten,L. March 12th,2014). The city sustains one of the highest numbers of South Asian populations who are diligently trying to re-construct their lives to achieve a better living standard. Overlea Boulevard, a South Asian shopping complex in Thorncliffe Park, is home to not just small-scale businesses but is also a reflection of the South Asian communities and their identity built over the years. However, Metrolinx in the year 2019 confirmed the construction of a new Ontario Metro Line to be located at Overlea Boulevard in replacement of the existing shopping complex. It also involves an adjoining area of 175,000 sq. m finalized for its maintenance and parking facility where currently, there are over 100 small-scale businesses, an Islamic center, and an industrial park located. According to the Toronto Employment Survey (2019), 1100 direct jobs and other recreational community areas will be affected due to the decision leaving many unemployed and a few businesses displaced. This is a design-based project, the goal of which is to transform Thorncliffe Park into a public form of the traditional community. Hence, these existing and future developed issues helped me re-consider the developing needs of the neighborhood along with a new version of a district shopping center to help preserve the lost traditions of the community and offer opportunities to small scale businesses. The goal is to retain the cultural significance of the South Asian community in the area by transforming the meaning and value of the Overlea Boulevard into a significant and symbolic place in Thorncliffe Park. Food and Culture together form the intangible heritage of the South Asian communities that must be preserved and shared with people from other communities. In order to achieve that, the project envisions ways to collectively re-make the socio-cultural identity of residents of Thorncliffe Park through the medium of food, craft, and art, and provide a similar social structure that feels like home, a place of opportunity, for the first- and second generation immigrants from South Asian countries. Hence, this project intents to take the first steps toward creating a South Asian community socio-recreational space in Thorncliffe Park, a source, and a resource to preserve the food traditions, and community-sensitive building language to create better revenue generation opportunities.
Maulshree Gupta
April 20, 2023
Honorable Mention
Xenomorph, the perfect organism
Architecture is in a constant state of change, and with new computational design technologies and AI, it is imperative to implement them in a meaningful way as they make their way into our built environment. Rather than only utilizing them for the sole purpose of efficiency, we decided to implement them in a more radical way, which challenges the standards of the urban and built fabric of our main cities. Due to its location on New York's Highline, this project employs stigmergy to merge space and fibrously connect the hotel with the city, as opposed to most building forms, which, while efficient and functional, can create a sense of separation and disconnection from the surrounding environment. This analogy of enclosed space as opposed to fibrous space is a concurrent topic in our project, which attempts to merge the dynamic populations of the area, creating a habitat of collaboration and increased opportunities for communication. It's important to mention that this project was highly focused on the computational techniques that led us to a combination of spaces that resemble the programmatic features of a high-rise hotel. It's also a group project of three members and was developed throughout our 4th year's fall semester.
Daniel Lasso
March 22, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Rise of Sustainable Cities: Eco Community Towers and Vertical Farming
"From Waste to Wonder: Transforming Pallikarnai Marshland through Eco-Community Tower Innovation" The brazen dumping of over 4500 tons of garbage daily in the ecologically-sensitive Pallikarnai marshland has reached alarming proportions. With the vital rainwater conduit reduced from 6000 hectares in the 1960s to a mere 593 hectares in 2012, officials have admitted that current source segregation initiatives have been unsuccessful. In response, an innovative solution aims to not only treat the garbage disposal problem but also create an eco-community tower that hosts multiple functions to restore and develop the ecology of its contextual environment. Join the movement towards a waste-free and sustainable future.
Samuvel Benhursha Bernadsha ThanaEdison
April 22, 2023
Honorable Mention
Text-to-Architecture
We started to enter an era where design agency in architecture is shared. Even though it has been shared before between design professionals, now AI algorithms start to enter not only in the feasibility and the execution of the project but also in the design process Co-authorship between AI and designers is becoming the new normal. With the recent developments of machine learning, in specific Linguistics-based Diffusion Models, language is increasingly repositioning itself as a central mode of representation and understanding of architecture. These models are trained with massive datasets like the LAION-5B archive of over 5 billion image-text pairs. This gives designers access to a vast pool of sorted data and enables them to work with language and images in a synthetic way. This thesis project uses Linguistics-based Diffusion Models as a design tool and reconfigures the process of making space by putting atmosphere and materiality at the start of the design process and develops three dimensionality out of it.
Ebrar Eke
March 9, 2023
Honorable Mention
Space of Acknowledgment
The project focused on researching and discovering hidden narratives in history, practicing sensitivity in decision-making guided by the research and statements of the tribe, and acknowledging faults and injustices inflicted on the tribe. Through transparency in research and design, the student projects aimed to highlight the extent of loss suffered by the Nez Percé tribe. The process throughout the project involved intensive layering, where thoughts, emotions, stories, and maps provided organization to the students' understanding of land usage. Against this backdrop, students engaged in a 4-week beginning design studio project that sought to acknowledge the injustices faced by the Nez Percé, Nimiipuu Tribe in North Central Idaho. The project encouraged students to experiment with methods of designing that could serve as actions of acknowledgment. The studio project's aim was to sensitize the students to the loss of land and resources experienced by the tribe, as well as to foster empathy and grace in approaching the design process. (Lee, Robert, 2020) Quinn Anderson focuses on creating an environment that encourages learning, instills a feeling of peace, and promotes personal reflection. The design magnifies the division of land, prompting a direct confrontation with past wrongdoings. Anderson uses fire as the main element of the boundary engraved into the landscape. This project reflects upon the design thinking process of a student. Anderson mentions that a line drawn by an architect possesses the power to violently interrupt what is, to force the imaginative concoction of what could be, upon the unknowing. Rather than continuing the personification of an architect’s line, the amphitheater proposes to expand the conversation to consider the underlying egotistic nature of humans that shaped the Nez Percé’s destiny today.
Hala Barakat
March 12, 2023
Honorable Mention
VIVIFICARE
Vivificare- latin for giving life: Looking at architecture from an anatomical viewpoint, the building becomes the human. The facade becomes the "skin" of the design, where the geometry gives the building its life-representing that of a lung. Being the main component of the building, everything unfolds around the lungs of the building. The weaving and protrusion of the form through the floor creates sub-spaces with a interesting atmosphere. The open floor plan of the building builds a sense of togetherness as well as remaining adaptable for the future of the building.
Brendan Bielenda
April 27, 2023
Honorable Mention
WEYLONZ
"Weylonz" revels in a minimalist design in architectural facade space and form with material of ventilation blocks and timber toned screen complemented with strategically placed greenery. Weylonz offers a vibrant yet modest design where client have control over the way they work , live and play. The phenomenon of "Agile working" as promotedby the design allows for enhanced creativity and productivity of start-ups designers , entrepreneurs and the like offering adaptibility to new age and future work trends of the redefined studio.
LIM PUI SAN
March 13, 2023
Honorable Mention
Hospitality Training Center (Studio-IV)
Flagship Program of Hospitality >Hospitality Training Center long-held vision to one day build an academic facility solely dedicated to its top-ranked hospitality program is now a reality. The new state-of-the art academic hub for the next generation of industry leaders Designed for the Student of Today Spacious common areas, advanced technology, and flexible classrooms provide the ideal setting for students to master both the theoretical and practical elements of the hospitality industry. students have the added benefit of learning in a space that is environmentally friendly. Special Features >42,000 square feet of learning, meeting and office space and a state-of-the-art kitchen. >Convertible, interactive classrooms. >A student-run café >Common spaces for students and educators to mingle and collaborate The building embraces its hospitality roots and blends them with the rigors of an academic program. The inner atrium, lower plaza’s, upper balconies and roof top gardens provide students and faculty alike with opportunities for daily serendipitous’ encounters, places to study as groups or individually, to entertain or just relax. The interior of the building includes classrooms, computer labs, teaching kitchen, café, specialty classrooms, offices and administration areas. The exterior exudes a sense of permanence, individuality and presence with the use of white color, Aluminum and glass on a campus of eclectic styles. It responds to its place, program and climate.
Rubel Chowdhury
March 19, 2023
Honorable Mention
Nature of Daylight
The focus of this project is on the interaction between the choice of material and the use of materials and the architectural, technical and ecological requirements to be met during conception and implementation by reduction, reusing and recycling. This project is made to create affordable living space in the growing urban area 1100 Vienna, Kurbadstraße, in timber construction, whereby the focus of the design is mainly on the circular construction.
Esra Altas
April 21, 2023
Honorable Mention
Blocked residential buildings in Sestroretsk
The block sections of the residential building of the blocked development are designed from the conditions of their settlement by one family and provide for the presence of residential and utility rooms. The overall dimensions of the residential and utility rooms of the block section are determined depending on what is necessary to ensure the life of one family, placed taking into account ergonomic, sanitary and hygienic standards and aesthetic requirements. The compact form of the building is used, which provides a significant reduction in the consumption of thermal energy for heating the building. The roof of the building is flat, operated with an internal drain.
Nina Maslikova
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
Atlantis
Have you ever reimagined the ocean floor? What if millions of years ago an alien living form, previously unknown to humans, occupied the depth of the oceans? Atlantis is an imaginative exploration into the particle-filled living void underwater, and it was completed during Retrofiction workshop hosted by Architect Scripta in Athens, Greece. Atlantis strives to reinvent a dynamic lost environment and create mythical creatures under the ocean surface, intersecting multiple typologies and their respective habitats. From more static structural elements of the mythical world (such as columns and dancers) to the particle-like environment which is constantly in motion of assembly and disintegration, Atlantis suggests an aspatial concept which counters a black-and-white narration of history. With imagination, the project raises open-ended – and surely enticing – questions and possibilities.
Polina Stepanova
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
Residence
The Architect's task is to rewrite their "parents'" life stories and design a house that caters to the needs of these characters that exist today, in the site where you all are residing now as the House Option 2. First, The Architect's required to create a unique (Oscar-worthy) profile for the users and then conduct a detailed study and analysis of the site to understand how best to respond to the context; meanwhile you will identify the needs of the users and formulate a design brief which you will, in turn, translate to a creative built form. However, the following functional requirements must be incorporated; Space for living & dining, master bedroom & bathroom, guest bedroom & bathroom, kitchen, and a single carport. The total area is not to exceed 1750sqft, and the choice of materials must be logical, innovative, and contemporary.
Shaniya Palliyaguruge
March 7, 2023
Honorable Mention
Sap Lab
Invasive species have become a pressing global issue, with an estimated $120 billion in economic losses annually from their impacts. In the United States, invasive species are responsible for the loss of more than 220,000 jobs and the cost of $8.8 billion in damages each year. One of the most serious invasive species problems is the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, which has been rapidly spreading across the eastern United States and is threatening the survival of the Eastern Hemlock tree population. The Hemlock Woolly Adelgid is a sap-sucking insect that feeds on the tree’s sap, causing the tree to die. To combat this issue, the proposal reimagines the integration of invasive species (Hemlock Woolly Adelgid) into the project’s infrastructure as a means to preserve the native Eastern Hemlock trees population. The proposal consists of two components: a Hemlock Woolly Adelgid research lab and a CLT factory. How can humans collaborate with other species to form new structures without depleting the earth’s natural resources?
Megan Dang
March 19, 2023
Honorable Mention
Community Fusion
Community Fusion is a housing project that takes a holistic approach to neighborhood integration and contemporary living. It aims to focus on aspects of improving people's way of life by designing living environments that take into consideration both social needs and human desires, as well as political, economic and environmental issues. It includes an extensive study on the conditions and outcomes of the city, along with its opportunities in the housing sector. Thus, this project comprises of sustainable housing based on the distinct needs of the community of the Banani area of Dhaka city in Bangladesh, along with its wider linkages with urban design and planning.
Audity Haider
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
Configuration of Greek Roof
Our strategy, therefore, is implemented within the context of the Greek roof. More specifically, with this proposal, the qualitative, cultural and economic upgrading of the area and by extension the city itself is achieved. The application of the green roof is an ornament for the city and at the same time serves both the needs of the area and the environment, as well as the residents of the city.
SERAFEIM VLACHODIMOS
March 25, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Three Hundred Year Succession
University of Westminster DS10 This studio highly values sustainable design principles, as well as closely examining the holistic relationship between parametric modeling and emerging fabrication technologies. It is vital that design solutions respond intelligently to their wider cultural and environmental context by ensuring that research is grounded in architectural reality. This notion is nurtured by a deep exploration of construction technology - the act of making and learning by testing ideas in the real world. Timber has been specifically chosen as a topic of study for its value as a sustainable building material. The built environment contributes heavily to global carbon emissions, much of which is related to the production of concrete. Part 1: Design Development This project seeks to explore phyllotaxis (the study of plant geometry) in an endeavor to understand the structural and formal logic behind the immense variety of spiraling patterns found in plants and in nature. Early research led to exploring spirals in spiral staircases, as they are a traditional example of load-bearing, compressive spirals. Digital experiments led to playing with a variety of changing angles on a single stair. Part 2: Research & Analysis The abstracted architectural construction technology, derived from a series of physical and digital studies, is then developed organically into a greater architectural project that responds intelligently to its context. The ambition is to explore how this research can inform decisions that ultimately lead to large-scale communities. This is done while critically examining the aspects of the social and built environments that affect their ability to be perpetuated in a sustainable fashion. Part 3: Final Proposal Insight into the ultimate vision of the community-driven project. A proposal that has been shaped and informed by a long series of studies exploring the practical, economical, and environmental aspects of the endeavor.
Nick Leung
March 17, 2023
Honorable Mention
Nest & Cave
The present-day activities of our key species- the mangrove tree crab facilitates productivity in the mangrove ecosystem which is vital to the coastal resilience of South Florida. This is designed as an ecosystem that caters to this productivity based on the needs of the crab. Exploring the dynamics of this ecosystem assists in understanding what drives it in order to develop restoration strategies for the future contributions of this project. Partner: Amaya Cameron.
Amanda Wojtasiak
April 8, 2023
Honorable Mention
Wood joint container
The architectural project is a container designed to hold 4 joints created in a previous project securely in place. The container was made using a CNC machine, a lasercutter, 3d prints, and analog shop tools. The architectural aspects of the project include the use of a CNC machine to create the container, the use of a lasercutter to create the lid, the use of 3D prints to securely hold the joints in place, and the use of analog shop tools to create the bottom part of the container.
Zoe Thompson
April 8, 2023
Honorable Mention
Chelsea Branch Library
The Chelsea Branch Library is sited at the corner of 10th Ave. and 20th St. along the High Line Transfer Corridor. The convergence of these factors allows for three possible access points on the north, east, and west faces of the building. This elevated ground condition generates artificial topography within the building, where one must resolve the movement of people from the High Line to the street level and vice-versa. Elements of the building engage the visitor long before they enter. Above the High Line datum, void space is oriented east-west in a playful confrontation with the linear park, creating a visual corridor that pulls people inwards. Below the High Line, floor slabs slope downward in alignment with the north façade of the building, engaging the corner condition of 10th Ave. and 20th St.
Joli Brown
April 10, 2023
Honorable Mention
Journey of Care
Journey of Care is a project based in India that seeks to reimagine the country's public transport infrastructure as a means of providing access to healthcare. India faces many challenges when it comes to healthcare, with the Global Gender Gap Report of 2021 showing that China and India together account for around 1.5 million missing female births each year worldwide. In addition, almost half of the 47 million pregnancies in India each year are unintended, and women and mothers in particular face gaps in healthcare access. To address these issues, Journey of Care proposes to repurpose the Lifeline Express train as a mobile healthcare facility that can reach people across the country. India has one of the latest train systems in the world. A symbol of British colonialism, this state-owned system operates on a massive scale, with over 7000 stations and more than 68,000 km of tracks, spanning across the country. For many Indians, the train is not just a mode of transportation but an important part of their culture and heritage and its connections to the far-flung corners of the country played a crucial role in the creation of a shared national identity that transcended regional and linguistic differences. The Lifeline Express is a hospital train that has been in operation in India since 1991. It was established through a collaboration between Impact India Foundation, the Indian Railways, and the Health Ministry, and has run around 200 projects since its inception. Currently, the train has seven coaches, including an office space, a conference car, staff car, two operation theater cars, and, in recent years, a mammography machine and a cancer awareness coach. The train operates on a project-based model, with government or private companies sponsoring the cost of healthcare camps in cities of their choice. To expand on this model, Journey of Care proposes to add 11 coaches and a first car to the Lifeline Express. These new coaches would include two clinics for obstetrics-gynecology and pediatric care, a mental health coach, and educational coaches for workshops and awareness programs. In order to challenge the norms around openness and reproductive health, the train has been designed to be performative, interactive, and modular in its response to climate and program across different geographies. This includes the use of foldable, pivoting, and tilting panels to provide a sense of openness, shade, and play with light and shadow. Transparency through textures and fabric provides a level of privacy between indoor and outdoor spaces and creates a sense of comfort. When the train is stationary, the various permutations on the coaches' facade can be altered, allowing for transformation not just of the train's physical form but also of its identity. Overall, Journey of Care's proposal is for a modular motion system that can provide accessible and comfortable healthcare to all, challenging the spatial and functional limitations of what a train can do. While the passage could still benefit from more specific details about the Lifeline Express and the challenges faced by women and mothers in India, the revised version provides a clearer and more concise overview of the project's goals and proposed solutions.
ridhi chopra
March 15, 2023
Honorable Mention
Reimmersive Cultivation
Reimmersive Cultivation is the reclaiming of a stretch of land that was once the livelihood of an entire community. The site is located on Douglas Lake in Tennessee, where the Tennessee Valley Authority once flooded communities to build a series of hydropower plants, causing the displacement of thousands of families. The project is a cycling of history and returns to the original purpose of the land the project is embedded into. It is a haven for nomads and migrants seeking refuge from an impending climate emergency. The reclamation of this land is a powerful symbol to new inhabitants that community and stability can be rebuilt and remain steadfast through the use of thoughtful and sustainable design. The project begins with a water research laboratory, and over time begins to populate with refugee cabins along the riverbed. The planned community spans across the length of the three mile site, and through time, over a course of 150 years. The farming and housing infrastructure is designed to take into account the course of time, and slowly unfolds in the form of agrivoltaics, combining farming and a grid of solar panels which provides clean energy and self-sufficiency for the entire stretch of the community. Reimmersive Cultivation is ultimately about returning to the roots of the land, where the original Appalachian inhabitants relied on agriculture as their livelihood, and repopulating the site in a way that both honors those who were displaced and reimagines a healthier way to sustain a community with new methods of farming and energy production. It is meant to invite climate refugees to a haven that will support them through the combined efforts of their new community, so that they may in turn begin to support each other and build connections with their community that will stand the test of time.
Anna Haynes
April 17, 2023
Honorable Mention
Water Filtration Along the Eerie Lock Canal
In 2200, the world declared the lack of clean water a national emergency. Human’s effects on nature had finally caught up to them. After a brief period of devastation, the world tried to take action. It was established that all future construction of buildings and site design has to incorporate any type of water filtration system as nature is unable to function on its own. As the years passed the integration of water filtration systems became normalized and clean water was introduced back into society in small amounts. Although the world took action, the demand for clean water is always more than what is being produced at any given time, creating a new culture change around the concept of clean water. It is not only needed but is considered sacred. By 2273, 250 years from now, the world is fast-paced with new designs in technology and, in turn, the way of living. In this world, the art of slowing down and experiencing a moment of leisure and contemplation is craved. With this new age of invention and technology, many who experienced the past remember the times of simplicity and a slower-paced world. Soon new site designs popped up as water filtration systems that supplied themselves off of the rivers that run through the state of New York. With the already established lock systems, designs appear across the landscape and draw from the water that ran through this pre-existing system. This weaving design allows for easy manipulation to save the land and provide clean water to neighborhoods that gathered around it. This design also allows people access to clean water while simultaneously providing a space for relaxation and space to contemplate the bustling city around them. From day to day, people wander and follow the patterns of the pipes on the surface of the platform, mesmerized by the purity of the water and the maze-like feeling the site established. The tanks of clean water remind visitors of the legendary beauty that was lost with the destruction of the naturally appearing landscape. Stories were passed down through generations and many children who wander along the lock find themselves daydreaming of a seemingly fictional world. Children and adults alike stop as their gaze follows the filtered water from the pump house. One child walks forward absorbed with the water flowing through the pipes on the outside of the pump house. These pipes act as a wall and the child feels a sense of peace within an enclosure that in actuality is part of the outdoors. The pump house sits on a glass floor and they watch as the dirty water is siphoned up into the tanks where it is then filtered. From there, they run and crawl beneath and around the exterior pipes as they watch the, now clean, water as it flows to the pipes on the roof and distributes to the pipes that form a porous wall. From here they laugh and run in curling directions as they watch the water flow across the site’s surface underneath the layer of glass that encloses it. On the surface, the swirling design of the pipes causes the child to feel the same peaceful lull as a lazy river. With curiosity and fascination, they go on to admire the pools of clean water and continue their adventure as their parents call them along. Groups of all ages gather to collect clean water while maintenance continually visits to check on the status of the pipes and filtration system in the main pump house. The relationship is reminiscent of Mother Nature as she once cared for the landscape that acted as home to both animals and humans. Now, only humans are left to care for these sites they have created to replace nature that once took care of them on its own. Although all that visit these sites come and go and never experience it for an elongated period, the characteristics of the site, pumphouse, and surrounding tanks establish a feeling of longing for a world that was without devastation. A world that was left behind long ago.
Annelise Eggen-McElmurry
April 10, 2023
Honorable Mention
Urban Metabolism: The Factory Studio
Situated on Gowanus bay and aiming to revitalize the once-industrial waterfront of Sunset park that is being rapidly gentrified, the factory is an urban metabolism that renews the site while also transforming organic food waste into innovative raw materials, thus creating a closed loop system. In addition to its productive, social, and educational aspects, this urban metabolism provides a rich natural habitat for the local flora and fauna. The factory edges are a living shoreline and deep landscape serving as a mitigator between machine and the environment. The wetlands carry the flora of the dry landscape into the water, providing additional types of wet habitats. The water plants do their part in cleaning pollutants from Gowanus Bay. The landscape operates as a tool for soil bio-remediation. It is planted with crops such as mushroom. The mushroom roots, or mycelium, have many benefits for eliminating pollutants embedded in the depths of the soil.
Ali Elsinbawy
March 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
Maps of Mythical Narratives
The Maps of Mythical Narratives are a segment of the collaborative project “Elegy to the Void” between me (Maja Petrevska) , Angela Krstevska and Sara Atanasovska made as a part of the integrative Master studio IX in architectural - urbanism “Growth 2.0 : Settlement” on the Faculty of Architecture in Skopje, North Macedonia I decided to use the method of mapping in order to catch a glimpse of the world of floating dreams that’s hidden behind the real, tangible world. Both maps represent a segment of our project where the technical reality of the project (the different zones of spatial uses in our new settlement) is translated into a world of soft-spoken narratives of everyday life, intertwining the notion of Home with the notion of extending the Home beyond its walls and into the landscape. This is a method of researching the fragility and softness of architecture and one of the tools is using poetry, both mine and of already established authors like Elizabeth Brett Jenkins, Eileen Myles and Derek Mahon. On both of the maps I’m enclosing a territory with an embroidery of fragile landscapes that are a translation of the different types of landscapes in our project, thus creating a contemporary mythical labyrinth hidden in plain sight. The maps are a reflection of my own need to understand architecture better by seeing beyond the real and into the world where the interconnectedness of architecture and nature is evident, where the myths, dreams and invisible transformations are intertwined with the architecture that I’m creating. Through this mapping process I strive to show how, in order to understand your own work, you have to fully immerse yourself in the world of imaginary narratives in order to understand the reality better. I translated the technical maps of fragments of our new type of settlement, adding surreal elements and thus deepening the meaning of architecture by heightening the emotional receptivity of space. In a way, my (un)conscious Self strives to revolt against the monotony of direct perception, to revolt against the anaesthetization of human intimacy, to revolt against the sensorial deprivation of the spatial experience. These maps are in a way a manifesto that encourages a multi-sensory experience of architecture. The multisensory experience, whether that be a spatial one or poetic one, must be felt rather than verbalized or analyzed. And to feel the experience means to put an effort in feeling everything with a special kind of attention attached to all sensations perceived by each of the senses. It requires an openness, an empathy, a special kind of vulnerability that will further lead to a heightened emotional receptivity of the surroundings. And in the moment of experiencing a certain space with a heightened sensitivity there is a gap between the past and the present where the imaginations, memories, (day)dreams and fears intertwine and one becomes aware of the lightness of being fully present, without fear and pain, without emotional detachment. And the method of mapping narratives of performative and social landscapes of the predicted everyday life of the project therefore creating a mythical world within a world gives me space to explore architecture in its full imaginative potential while trying to intimately connect different things that you may not imagine being related. Through these maps I revolt against the harshness and monotony of direct perception since it implies an emotional detachment that I’m not willing to do. I also revolt against the sensorial deprivation of the spatial experience by trying to find a way to make sense of my own experiences. The anaesthetization of human intimacy in modern day architecture makes me feel alienated and painfully disconnected even though everything begins and ends in a certain enclosure. So I decide to retreat into the field of radical tenderness and to revolt by loving more. To revolt by making architecture as gentle, fragile and personal as it can be. I am reclaiming architecture by softening its edges to the point of dissolving, to the point of now knowing where one ends and where the space begins. I am proud to say that this map was also recognized by KoozArch as one of the three winners out of 400+ submissions of the Open Call For Drawings: February Edition https://www.koozarch.com/archipelago/a-map-of-mythical-narratives
Maja Petrevska
April 23, 2023
Honorable Mention
CIVIC CENTER QUARTZ
This project is a civic center, a type of public building that is governed by its social and cultural environment and has the function of serving its citizens. The generative concept of the project is the semi-precious stone quartz. It is a beautiful stone, but what really stands out about it is its hardness and resistance. Through architecture, the aim is to project these values onto this emerging community, which was displaced from its former settlement due to subsidence caused by the oil activity in the area. The architecture communicates a clear message to its surroundings through the abstraction of the semi-precious stone: quartz. It seeks to convey the value and strength for these values to be instilled in this emerging population: a strong, innovative community with initiative and a sense of belonging. A public building that speaks to the public that makes up its population. A civic center provides a meeting point for the community and its government entities, powers that must work together, shoulder to shoulder and not against each other. This is where great projects can be born and important messages can be communicated. Within the building, there are spaces endowed with natural light, vegetation, and natural ventilation, which are fundamental for healthy spaces, providing users with well-being and thermal comfort. It has 3 public entrances and one service entrance. Its main entrance connects with the civic plaza, which is of utmost importance in the concept of this project as it is a multifaceted space that will lend itself to various activities, from being a meeting and recreational point for the community to a space for ceremonies and political speeches. Inside the building, we find the following: on the ground floor, of 20533m2, there are shops, a vegetable market to the left and meat market to the right. On its east facade, there is the deposit and warehouse of the center, and finally, in the heart of the building, there is a central stairwell core surrounded by vegetation and water mirrors. It also has steps so that it becomes a contemplative space where, in the middle of the day, people can sit and have a moment of relaxation. Parking lots surround the enclosure, which makes this building easily accessible for both people with cars and pedestrians. The first level, of 11456 m2, as well as the second level, of 8643 m2, houses shops with various products, but on the second level, public facilities begin to be observed. One of the purposes of a civic center is to provide the user with the ease of making available a variety of services and facilities. On the third level, which has 7976 m2, public facilities are concentrated, and the administration offices of the civic center are also located. Finally, on the fourth level, which has 8028 m2, there is a high terrace restaurant that offers unparalleled panoramic views of the city. you can look more here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_9nICDjrQIro9ky2hyVFisZqsnhDy3Db?usp=share_link
MARIA FERRER
April 23, 2023
Honorable Mention
Re-Identifying Cairo's Center
The city of Cairo in Egypt is one of the biggest and oldest cities in the world with its foundation starting with the Islamic old city in 641–642 AD. Also it is counted as one of the richest in its culture as it has gone through many phases and expansions with varying identities clashing dating back to the Islamic age reaching to the colonial French and British era with everything else in between. Cairo now has expanded organically around its center by a great extent making it one of the biggest megacities in the world and one of the most populated with a population surpassing 21 million citizens. This chosen center of the city is Tahrir's square (Victory square). It is one of the main points that witnessed many revolutions and shifts of the city. But now the city has simply become too big, dense and diverse in its identity that it is in desperate need for a new center that fits its scale. This project proposes a new heart of the city in the Old Islamic Cairo and ways to revitalize the old city. This project was completed by the architecture students May Sherif and Mohamed Omar supervised by Prof. Rita Pinto De Fritas part of the design studio course in the German University in Cairo. This project has also won the 2nd place "The Luiz Conceição Architecture award" organized by ISMAT in Portugal in 2022 and published and exhibited in "Bayt Yakan" a cultural center in Islamic Cairo aiming to regenerate and revitalize the old city.
Mohamed Omar
April 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
Project Greenwood
Project Greenwood situates itself as a mass-timber housing complex that re-establishes a center of green space and shifts away from the industrial identity of the area. Extending the "park" to multiple vertical levels creates a broad system of flexible and unique outdoor spaces for residents of the complex.
Vince Hernandez
March 16, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Farm Post Agriculture
The farm has the potential to play a huge role in reducing our global carbon footprint. What are we to learn as we hope to move into a post Anthropocene world? How can we move past agriculture and simultaneously dismantle our binary interpretation of nature? The horticultural farm in Blythe is set out to allow us to question what nature is, and bring industry, biophilia and wildlife closer together. By lifting the food production spaces above, a ground floor can serve as a shaded park that is kept at a comfortable thermal level due to its proximity to the Colorado River.
bisher tabbaa
March 19, 2023
Honorable Mention
Pollinator Pavilion
Designed and built by third-year architecture students, the Pollinator Pavilion acts as a gateway to a restored native prairie landscape on the site of the Kansas Children's Discovery Center in Topeka, Kansas. The design of the structure stems from the Kansas state bird, the Western Meadowlark, as well as pollinator species native to Kansas prairies. The incorporation of these elements offers the children visiting the museum a chance to learn about the various flora and fauna that exist within the adjacent prairie through programming at the Center. To withstand prescribed burns of the prairie, the entire structure is composed of galvanized steel with powder coated accents near the cantilevered wing tips. Large cottonwood limestone boulders serve as seating and prairie overlook platforms for children. Located adjacent to the parking lot, the pavilion also serves as a drop-off location for museum visitors. The pavilion form capitalized on parametric software and digital fabrication tools to prepare steel components. Solar shading simulations were used to optimize the form for seasonal shading to best serve the museum visitors. Over time, the prairie landscape will fill in to surround the pavilion and integrate it into the landscape. Instructor: Keith Van de Riet Students: Ashlyn Caldwell, Landon Dinkel, Katie Drummond, Cole Erlemeier, Cameron Ernst, Emily Flachs, Tianyi Han, Hanna Hissa, Emme Schatz, Yuchuan Shi, Sophey Shutt, David Tauser
Keith Van de Riet
March 20, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Catalyst (Redefining schools during war with Gaza as the case)
Imagine living with the threat of bombing at any second, having lived through 4 wars and been blocked for 15 years by air, sea, and land. Imagine living in a city that is labeled as the ‘world’s largest open-air prison’. Imagine seeing death, violence, losing a home in a split of a second and many other horrors at a very young age. This is the life of over 1 million children who make up 47% of Gaza. 91% of these children suffer from Trauma (Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor says) . This causes many consequences that affect the children’s future and education. Due to the Living conditions in Gaza there are no spaces for the children to heal and express, with the school as the most likely space to gather. This makes the school building a very good place to heal the children and as a result improve their education and future. I am proposing a strategy to convert Schools in Gaza into community healing hubs.
Shatha Joudeh
March 25, 2023
Honorable Mention
Endangered
Currently, there is hardly any piece of nature we humans haven't touched or had an impact on. Because of this, we have greatly damaged and desensitized our connection with it reducing our usual awe-inspired reaction from its sublime quality to an everyday indifference. And worse - ecosystems and organisms we are seemingly so separate from have deteriorated to only a fraction of what they used to be because of our influence. My pathway and pavilions are intended to bring our attention back to these endangered animals and plants of the sea to raise awareness for the damage we've caused. Using the uncanny and abstract forms of these species I wanted to make architectural follies that would recreate that sublime reaction from nature we've fallen out of touch with and showcase a side of nature we normally wouldn't see. Earnst Haeckel, a zoologist who illustrated and documented many of the animals and plants I used in my design had the same intention when he originally set out to catalog them. He wanted to show the people of his time a side of nature they might not have known even existed.
Ethan Berbrick
April 8, 2023
Honorable Mention
FLUX
Designed by Yuselbio Novas, Elyssa Yonta, Ethan Sedano, and Megan Ung. Located in Albany, New York RISSE is an organization that helps people of various backgrounds and stories in all different stages of transition. We designed for the continuously changing nature that RISSE has to respond to. This fluctuation required a design that exhibited the same adaptability and versatility of RISSE. Our site intervention organizes flux spaces and unifies the project by connecting disjointed spaces and creating dynamic circulation. We utilized the now-available sanctuary space to accommodate RISSE’s program needs and further their capabilities. Our flux spaces look to support RISSE in its mission to offer refugees and immigrants a a smooth transition that fosters independence and equips them with the foundational skills necessary to thrive. Risse currently rents the church from a congregation but since the congregation is dissipating, Risse wants to buy the property and make it into a space their clients can call home. The property currently has many issues. The architectural front door of the church is no longer used because the parking lot is on yates street. The site lacks privacy from West Lawrence and yates street and the current site also lacks any type of geometry. A specific type of space our client asked for us to create is a prayer space. Somewhere for people to be alone and pray.
Yuselbio Novas
April 11, 2023
Honorable Mention
![The [Re]Construction Museum](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchhhive-images.s3.amazonaws.com%2F643df50050886a21c199397c%2FKillerImageBillboard-21510ac2-24f8-4b8e-a05f-1142f69275fc.png&w=3840&q=75)
The [Re]Construction Museum
The [Re]Construction Museum looks at using the materials on a heritage site to design a building that is community built with the material manipulation being the inspiration towards creating a schedule of accommodation that accommodates workshops that allow people to explore more traditional ways of making, display them and sell them to pay homage to the original materials used to create the part of the city that was lost from the physical aspect. In addition to that, attempts in reviving the social aspect of the site that was lost due to losing the original pillar of the community which is the church and introduces a new pillar that builds a community with a new purpose that being, working in the real world and specifically most careers in material manipulation heavily influenced by the construction industry.
Maream Merza
April 18, 2023
Reader's Choice
Complex 1st of May
Team: Luca Augusto Corrêa Ana Clara Cavalcante Lucas Bernandes Maria Isabela Araujo Heitor Ribeiro Cynthia Nojimoto Ludmila Santos de Andrade Angelina Nardelli The main objective of the project is to provide qualitative social housing to the local community, and to support those who are experiencing homelessness. By promoting the interaction of the building with the urban infrastructure in the neighborhood in which it is located, the project centralizes the worker's residence, improving their quality of life. The program includes a complete support system with urban equipment, commerce, educational centers, community centers, health centers, and green areas, in other words, urban planning for the working class, combined with architecture. Typologies are created that meet the demands of diverse families while respecting the individuality and singularity of the users.
Luca Corrêa
April 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
Hybrid Architecture: Building as an Infrastructure
A void is located between the two sides of the river and blocked by the Ronda Literal and the railway, creating a disconnection, a buffer zone that does not invite people to the other side. The two residenetial sides consists of cosmopolitan societies , with a low social level. This project is to act on this void and introduce a movement from the residential area to Platja del Forum to the outskirts of Badalona.
May Sherif
April 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
WONDER
This open space building has a diverse range of functions and accommodates temporary users, such as hikers, tour guides, and tourists. It serves as a place for individuals to take a moment to rest, enjoy the surrounding scenery, and engage with others. Concrete is the primary construction material, while glass is utilized for the railing. The building's leveling design incorporates the contour of the site and features a unique zigzag form, which evokes a sense of wonder and curiosity in its users. The building's layout includes two separate observation decks at the top of the hill, each offering a different view of the scenery.
LIM PUI SAN
March 10, 2023
Honorable Mention
Hybrid strategies in the densification of the new city center
Project developed as a 1st phase submission within the Architecture Diploma UAUIM. According to the United Nations, the working population is projected to increase by 70% by the year 2050, a factor that intensifies a major global trend, the intensive urbanization of peri-urban areas. In the case of Amsterdam, the population is increasingly targeting areas outside the metropolis that benefit from increased mobility and bring economic benefits. According to the Structural Plan 2040 - Amsterdam, two-thirds of new homes will be built in the peripheral areas of the city. Cities tend to develop outward, creating new neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city. Zaanstad has done the same with neighborhoods like Kogerveld, Hoornsevel, Poelenburf, and later on Westerwatering and Rooswijk. Nowadays, the city has reached its limits, enclosed between the natural landscape protection area to the west and highways to the east. Although it cannot expand territorially, it is anticipated that the city will densify within the current administrative boundaries in the future. The ways to accommodate this growth involve the intensive use of limited space to manage the social and physical density. The study aims to provide an integrated architectural response that develops a transforming area into the new spatial center of the city, as defined by the Inverdan plan, marking the third stage of post-industrial development and prosperity of the city. The proposed location is situated in the vicinity of the train station and the new city hall of Zaandam. The densification of urban nodes along the railway results from increased mobility within and outside the city. The train station is seen as the gateway into and out of the city, a point of cohesion of posterior knowledge with specific information about the city. The work methodology involves exploring the intangible potential of the place in relation to the built environment to address future challenges of urban environments. The intangible qualities of architecture create new typologies in the occupation of public space, introducing emptiness, void, pause, movement, and spatial perception as points of work with the program. The city administration has not always been an institutional structure. Throughout history, major events that have changed the mentality and development directions of the city have been part of the social and pragmatic sphere. Within the intervention, the project proposes accommodating a series of events that collaborate in defining the informal administration of the city, aiming to develop and improve it both physically and for the people who inhabit it. Thus, the project incorporates a cycle of learning, creating and exhibiting, within a library, a co-working space and an exhibition route, associated with the public space.
Andreea Diana Roman
April 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
Odeon Center; A space to celebrate Colombia’s cultural richness
Bogota, the capital of Colombia, is one of the most vibrant and culturally rich cities in Latin America. Throughout its history, Bogota has been home to a large number of indigenous, Afro-descendant, mestizo and foreign populations, which has generated a mixture of traditions and customs. We can understand Bogota as an intercultural space where different populations converge and coexist in a city that celebrates its diversity. Colombia has a rich musical history as well, which has been nurtured by the influences of different regions of the country. Although conditions have not always been adequate for different cultures to live together in harmony, the city has made progress in promoting interculturalism and respect for differences. From this, Odeon Center was born, a cultural center based on the understanding of music as a universal form of expression and a powerful tool to connect people, regardless of their cultural, social or economic background. This architectural proposal is a micro-cluster of music, a platform to celebrate music and explore this cultural richness through exhibitions, workshops, teaching spaces, classes, concerts and other events. Initially this project was born from an intention based on the concept of fusion. This, materialized by creating a “knot” folded building that is constructed by means of a double fold, which unfolds organically merging with the ground. It then grows, weaves, and becomes the walls, floors and ceilings. In this way, the entire program is enveloped by its passage, responding to the particular needs of each space in relation to areas, heights and lighting. Finally, the folds fade into the sky. Architecture as a musical instrument. The building was design in order to formally communicate the experience of music: rhythm, movement, tempo and harmony. In this way, architecture is aimed to be transformed into a melody, into an architecture that sings. Inside the building, the world of music is celebrated in different thematic areas. A program that houses didactic and experimental teaching spaces, commercial areas, exhibition spaces, entertainment, and an auditorium. This cultural center proposes a variety of educational programs and activities for all ages, an articulating axis where architecture becomes an important tool for the cultural development of the city. Odeon center is a space where people can gather to listen and play music, it is a way to foster unity and social cohesion in the city. The architecture from the promenade architecturale : The building has multiple paths. The first floors invite people to enter the project and experience it in different ways: entering by the subway, directly on the street and by going up to the upper floors. Stairs and ramps are strategically placed, always keeping in mind the search for a continuous and fluid spatiality, a promenade accompanied at all times by music. The architecture from the concept to its materialization: From these conceptual intentions, the structural system is based on a central core in concrete from which continuous viereendel beams in steel are detached giving support to the cantilevers. One of the challenges of this project was to design curved steel beams hidden between the folding that gives greater rigidity to the structure. The slabs are lightened by means of cassettes. Architecture in harmony with the site: The building is implanted consciously and harmoniously with its context. This contemporary architecture based on the concept of merging with the ground and the context of the site is an innovative and respectful way of integrating modern architecture into the rich cultural and architectural history of the city. Another way to merge the building with the context of Bogotá is to include local cultural and artistic elements in the architecture of the building. This is manifested through murals, sculptures and many others types of public art, which represent the history and culture of Bogota and where different communities can find a space for expression and integration. This unconventional building aims to become an architectural landmark, an emblematic building that stands out in the urban landscape, attracting the attention of locals and tourists, which in turn has a positive impact on the local economy. The building's design is attractive and memorable, a design that takes into account the acoustics and the structure's ability to accommodate different programs. By becoming an architectural landmark and a space for social integration, the building fosters the connection between different communities and becomes a reference space for culture and music in the city. Finally, Odeon Center is a project that understands that music is a universal art form that can unite people and improve the quality of life in the city, and that together with architecture it can promote spaces for the social integration of the different cultures and communities that coexist within the city of Bogota. This architectural proposal is an invitation to celebrate the cultural richness of Colombia.
Sofia Hernandez
April 21, 2023
Honorable Mention
Ho2 - House option 2
Design Task The Architect's task is to rewrite their "parents'" life stories and design a house that caters to the needs of these characters that exist today, in the site where you all are residing now as the House Option 2. First, The Architect's required to create a unique (Oscar-worthy) profile for the users and then conduct a detailed study and analysis of the site to understand how best to respond to the context; meanwhile you will identify the needs of the users and formulate a design brief which you will, in turn, translate to a creative built form. However, the following functional requirements must be incorporated; Space for living & dining, master bedroom & bathroom, guest bedroom & bathroom, kitchen, and a single carport. The total area is not to exceed 1750sqft and must have a minimum of 2 levels, the choice of materials must be logical, innovative, and contemporary. Design Approach The house was a form generated through sound designed for a Music Producer and Marine Biologist. Challenging the typical residential construction by introducing and implementing Monolithic dome home construction methods. While the bedroom and wardrobe spaces extended underground the entrance level was the ground floor. The main space of the structure focuses on the recording studio placed as a midlevel. This space naturally passes the sound recorded within the room to the rest of the structure which was the main aim of the project. The structure was naturally lit by the hard landscaping water features to the spaces underground.
Methma Vithanage
March 4, 2023
Honorable Mention
"TOMATO EXPRESS" Center for promotion of value addition of vegetables
The proposed project takes place in Matale town, Sri Lanka and its primarily an agricultural area. Matale is prone to 35% of post harvest losses due to improper packaging, poor transport arrangements, and uncoordinated harvesting leading to glut, etc.. by introducing and promoting value addition, farmers can be aware about the importance of mitigating food waste and also value addition. The center also provide awareness and training for communities on vegetable and food preservation via passive dehydration. Passive dehydration is a cost effective method for preservation and also saves energy which is an alternate solution to help with the current energy crisis in Sri Lanka.
Senali Karunatilake
April 23, 2023
Honorable Mention
Kaleidoscope
Eden Yron & Yoel Gaft, Tel-Aviv University The project is located at the School of Mechanical Engineering at Tel-Aviv University, designed by one of the greatest architects of the 20th century, Louis I. Kahn. A large-scale brutalist structure consists of three vast empty spaces, which are roofed by concrete cycloid barrel vaults. They lit at their extremities by cylindrical-shaped lighting slots emitting a soft, non-dazzling light. Additional illumination for the space is provided through an upper slit in the barrel vault ceiling. he project offers a re-use for Kahn's structure in an era of social and technological changes. With the development of technology and increasing questioning of traditional art forms, we seek to experiment with the visual and sensory effects of artificial light. The architectural installation inspired by the monumental barrel vault and translated into semi-translucent polycarbonate arched chambers projecting a prism of colors using natural and artificial lighting. Eliciting both a strong sensorial and emotional response in viewers, the installation transitions from a visual experience into a bodily one, underscoring the notion of color as a material, physical phenomenon and asking to evoke a range of thoughts and feelings. It creates a synthesis of luminosity, reflections and shadows along with the rigidness of the static concrete structure.
Yoel Gaft
March 31, 2023
Honorable Mention
Nakanojo Artisan Sake Brewery
Japan, Gunma, Nakanojo: A rural town facing abandonment is in need of reviving its touristic sector and benefiting from the traditional wisdom of its elderly. An old school site is subject to renovation in hopes of reviving the area. Being the national drink of japan, we took on a sake brewery project to define the town’s unique identity and attract visitors. The Sake Brewery adapts a unique form and unforgettable experience birthed from the surrounding abandoned structure and the sake making process An industrial steel red parasite follows through the journey of making sake discovering along the way the beautiful foliage and landscape.
maya Sleiman
March 4, 2023
Honorable Mention
La Bricha astronomical observatory. Reunion of the past with the cosmos.
The search for happiness has taken precedence over the use of reason; Happiness is imposed in every activity that human beings carry out. For its full realization, the activities and actions would have to be guided by the principles in the path of success that would ensure the total satisfaction of the result obtained. One of my passions, always, is astronomy. In it I find peace and serenity with the stars. I explore a world to discover and endless possibilities that open my mind to new opportunities, to experience the meaning of life and a way to materialize dreams and ideals. I mix this passion with my professional vocation; The idea of designing an astronomical Observatory capable of combining the experiences of space and humanity of the architectural project with my expectations was born from them. The observatory creates an environment capable of fostering creativity and ingenuity to achieve full harmony between heaven, earth and architecture. The building will solve the needs raised throughout the investigation. I dare to believe that it is a field that offers architecture multiple opportunities for resilience and development. I establish an astronomical complex that develops and favors the studies of the earth with respect to the universe, the pertinent scientific research integrating Colombia with the world astronomical map designing an Astronomical Observatory in the Vereda la Bricha, border between the departments of Boyacá and Santander for its atmospheric characteristics determining the Vereda la Bricha as a potential astronomical center and regional reference.
Miguel Triana
March 10, 2023
Honorable Mention
The alluring fragmentation of a path
I remember the joy of exploring and discovering new places and paths thinking that I will find my own fictional world, a self-universe that consists of a diversity of elements and events that I used to imagine. I used to blindly follow the different paths and directions that nature would reserve for me. As I go further down, elements and fragmentations of nature guide me throughout my promenade as I'm able to touch and feel nature's textures while walking .The path winds through the woods, and as you get closer to the beach, the smell of salt water and the sound of the waves get stronger. The trees tower higher, and the sun is filtered through the leaves, creating a warm, comforting glow. I remember the feeling of being embraced by the trees, enveloped in the thick green foliage forming a sort of dark shelter. Finally, we can say that vision was always considered an essential element to define beauty and evaluate shapes colors and light. However, beauty in itself is not only a fulfillment of one sense which is vision but a combination of all our senses.
Rita Zreik
March 8, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Architecture of Vibration: Form Follows Resonance!
How might architecture be designed without visual ability? Architecture has been focused on its visual quality, both from the point of view of the designer and the user. In designing architecture, an architect requires the ability and sensitivity in terms of visuals. However, this design sees that there are other senses possessed by humans that play a role in sensing space, one of which is hearing. This project is an architectural concept that explores resonance as the bases of the formation and programming. It is situated in a context where the user and architect do not rely on visual ability. The form finding was developed through various explorations and physical prototyping by relying on resonance. Here, architectural elements are redefined due to the inactivity of the visual senses, which were previously dominant in perceiving and experiencing space. Space now exists as a cavity, a medium for vibrations that help users navigate. The cavity and the solid synergize to achieve a specific frequency that becomes the identity of the architecture itself. This study is expected to be a trigger for the development of architectural design practice in the future, that there are opportunities in designing architecture without visual abilities by pushing the potential of resonance and auditory. This study also opens the possibility for other sensory experience-based designs, expanding the potential of architecture as an enabling environment for various sensory experiences.
Alya Hasna Rizky Riandita
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
Tang Museum
Both sculpture and architecture experience the same design process, the manipulation of three-dimensional space. Throughout the years sculpture went from being associated with monuments and places to isolated and abstract. Another boundary of architecture is landscape. Over many years landscape has become a territory that separated sculpture from architecture. By using the study of sculpture we can start to analyze the fluidity of all three practices, sculpture, landscape, and architecture. In this project, the art of sculpture was experimented at various scales. The relationship between sculpture, landscape, and architecture was developed through a series of iterations. By replicating the ceramic work of the artist Takuto Kuwata, displacement maps were created. By using the art of sculpture it enabled a continuity between landscape and architecture. The Tang Museum serves as a walkthrough experience of a collection of storage artwork of sculptures and other mediums for students at Skidmore college in New York. The Tang Museum integrates a part of the campus that has not been explored by allowing students to connect to nature and art like the architecture is a connection between landscape and the sculpture of the building.
Clara Cruz
April 9, 2023
Honorable Mention
Vantage
VANTAGE: ANNEX TO THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, DC Vantage is a technologically advanced, sustainable, and elegant Library of Congress Annex. The program unfolds as a journey towards enlightenment, with each floor organizing program progressing from intrigue to investigation, discovery, reflection, and finally enlightenment. Each level of the plan also addresses a component of the Library of Congress mission statement. The façade design illuminates two contrasting but significant aspects of enlightenment, which is interaction with others and individual reflection and discovery. With a focus on efficiency, Vantage features a central automatic retrieval book system and takes advantage of Northern light. Ultimately, Vantage offers visitors the option to experience different perspectives, from the many reading room environments to the program components that allow visitors to interact with the archive materials in a variety of ways. Completed in partnernship with Claire DeMarco as part of IBDS (Integrated Building Design Studio).
Victoria Roscoe
April 16, 2023
Honorable Mention
AI Dreams: Space Exploration Through Light, AI, & Material Effects
In Fall 2021, AI Dreams began from a fascination with James Turrell’s Ganzfeld. The ephemeral light installation was rooted in the Ganzfeld Effect, a neurological theory proposing that visual and audio sensory deprivation causes spatial hallucinations. Humans are wired to understand their surroundings through the input of physical barriers. The Ganzfeld Effect is the absence of these barriers. Without visual markers our brain fills in the gaps, causing hallucinations of objects and space. Within Turrell’s light filled rooms there are no features — corners are smooth, the room is sound insulated, and patrons are encouraged to remain in the exhibit for at least six minutes, the amount of time needed to experience Ganzfeld. Though AI Dreams was inspired by the absence of stimulation, the project produced the antithesis of Turrell’s feature-less rooms.
Kait Reynolds
March 11, 2023
Honorable Mention
Ritualistic Articulations
The relationship between a project and its site can be much more than simply resting on it. The exploration of contrast and cohesion through rituals inspects this. The rituals associated with different tasks took on specific orientations; the sky above and the horizon below. These were thrusted into a site which had previously been made using interlocking forms that were pulled apart to reveal new spaces where the rituals would reside. Armatures surrounded the rituals within the site and passage were introduced. The design process makes it clear how small scale spaces can have greater effects, as their relationships to the armatures, passage, and site resulted in great transformations. Not only did the armatures account for space for the rituals, but were designed with consideration for every movement, process, and action associated with the ritual. The site was also transformed to allow for the two considered orientations. The passage then considered the different elements of the two rituals and bridged them to form cohesion between the two contrasting spaces. The use of grids and Escherian space allowed for complex relationships between surfaces and the spaces they formed. Varying orientations and changes in directionality allow for different explorations of how surfaces can be manipulated to shape space. Using grids kept consistency, even through contrasting styles, allowing for cohesion in the end. Escherian space allowed for complex design and the chance to challenge how objects of opposing orientation interact. These systems set the stage for experimentation with contrast and cohesion of elements within a larger site.
Sabrina Akbarally
April 8, 2023
Honorable Mention
Creative Hub: Up-Cycling to Reduce Waste
Jogjakarta is a big city in Indonesia and known as creative city because of lots of creative people lived there. As a big city , a major problem in Jogjakarta is still struggling with waste crisis, and one way to solve this problem is to make a creative program and create art from waste material (major waste in Jogjakarta is from metal, plastic, and paper). Therefore the intention of this project is to make a makerspace or studio with Up-cycling as the main theme. Up-cycling itself is a process of transforming old or discarded materials or products into new, often higher-value items, with the aim of reducing waste and environmental impact. This program designed for adults and kids in Jogjakarta and to educate them to think innovatively and creatively.
olive aprilia
April 16, 2023
Honorable Mention
Pavilion for Boggy Slough Conservation Area
The pavilion sought to join the spirit of a Loblolly Forest to provide a site-specific place for education and appreciation of rural East Texas. As such, by acknowledging the history of the previous lodge on site, which burnt down 50 years ago, the project illustrates the remarkable potential of local materials by a single roofing to host 30 people. The design footprint is based on the size of the largest loblolly pine ever recorded, measuring 54” in diameter. The module sets a pattern of fill and voids to provide shelter, respect existing vegetation, and frame views of the dense forest and meadow. The Pavilion for Boggy Slouth Conservation Area illustrates the remarkable potential of local material as the power of the community to preserve and create opportunities for visitors and researchers interested in native forests in the US. The project is an initiative of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation. It is developed by the Design Coast Gulf Lab, led by Architect Coleman Cooker and students from the University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with BCworshop. Construction ground break in mid-March 2023. Students - Sebastian Bartlett - Laura Bui - Paula Cano - Ana De Salvidea - Yusuf Derya - Ciara Hackman - Maddie Hamilton - Anna Hayes - Aya Kousa - Tessa Laplante - Miguel Magtaan - Keely Morgan - Kate Shirley
Paula Cano
March 11, 2023
Honorable Mention
Perseverance of a Place
Envisioning Miami Beach in 2070. This project is a historical preservation of a 1930's Stripped Mediterranean Revival, at 1236 Drexel Ave in Miami Beach, FL, that is at risk of being affected by sea-level rise in the near future. Built right after the Great Depression in 1929, the existing building is a very small “Urban Villa'' type that hosts a unique trait when compared to nearby buildings: its courtyard (due to an addition in 1935). The building continued to persevere through Covid-19 when its Residential Office zoning allowed its residents to run businesses from home. Over the years, this building has been able to maintain its community and character and to continue to persevere through sea-level rise, the resiliency strategies from Buoyant City are applied through the design. The methods used to preserve this structure include: raising the entire lot and repurposing the first level with a commercial program, sinking the courtyard for above-ground water collection, and adding underground water collection and filtration systems. To incentivize this action of preservation, the design proposal includes, creating an additional building with both residential and a commercial programs that bring in income and benefit the community. Aside from this, the renders depict what 2070 could look like with several new ideas for technological advances that help address sea-level rise. For example: repair drones, acid-rain neutralizing arches, ride-share kayaks, package teleportation center, remote holographic visits and more! by Manuela Farnot and Lila Coffey
Manuela Farnot
April 4, 2023
Honorable Mention
6th Sense "Experience the Unvisible"
Cappadocia, Turkey has distinctive geological formations, ancient underground cities, and historical landmarks. However, tourists often miss out on the region's full potential by only staying in the central area. One of those places is Yusuf Koç Church in Göreme, featuring a stunning stone-carved structure that includes various rooms and animal shelters hewn from the same rock. Historical research indicates that people utilized these carved spaces as a place to live. The project, "6th Sense" seeks to enhance visitors' experience of Cappadocia by utilizing virtual and augmented reality to showcase the region's unique features such as stone carving and wine making, offering a glimpse into the area's past living practices. The proposed project suggests creating a walking trail that is inspired by the hollows of a large rock formation, allowing people to explore the living spaces in a tangible way and also providing an opportunity to experience a blend of past and present realities. The project has been created to reflect real-life experiences in virtual reality, and is designed to provide users with an immersive and realistic experience. The VR project has been modeled and packaged using Unreal Engine 5, and is compatible with any VR headset.
Sukru Durak
March 7, 2023
Honorable Mention
EcoScape
Team: Mahmud Tantoush, Archontia Manolakelli EcoScape is an urban design project located in Manchester, UK. It adopts the ecological perspective of patch dynamics, referring to the spatiotemporal changes within and among patches that make up a landscape, with the aim to achieve full remediation of the Green Quarter area and allow wildlife to return to the city by 2080. The project draws inspiration from Urban Ecology, the study of the relation of living organisms with each other and their surroundings in urban environments, to encourage a balance between natural and man-made environments. As part of this project, a computational tool was developed to test different approaches to achieving this goal through the construction of architectural typologies with different ecological functions, aiming to remediate, dispose or grow a variety of plants and ecosystems with dynamic interconnections over a 60-year period.
Archontia Manolakelli
April 10, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Douglas Research Facility
The Douglas Research Facility is designed to accommodate the needs of the climate refugees that will be living and working on site in the Tennessee River Valley. The station will be built on a organically formed platform in the middle of Douglas Lake, so that it can adhere with the changing weather patterns. This will allow the station to adapt to changes in temperature and rainfall, as well as provide a safe haven for the refugees as it creates a climate haven for futuristic climatic disaster. The station will be divided into several sections, each with its own unique programing. The station will also have a large garden, which will be used to grow food for the refugees and to provide them with fresh food and resources.
Marlow DeGraw
April 18, 2023
Honorable Mention
Unscripted
Unscripted is a housing design based in Ahmedabad, India. It challenges the normal notions of housing in the city. The project gives multiple opportunities to modify the house according to the client's needs where the core and service shaft remains the same. Rest all functions of the house can be customized according to the needs, such as the number of bedrooms, working space, living room, single stack unit, or double stack unit. The housing provides a stunning commercial front with dual-level parking. The entire first floor is being provided with amenities and green space in between. The entire housing project accommodates around 1500 citizens ( 3 in a single unit ). Each unit is around 90 sqm in size. addition to that facilities like restaurants, canteen and workspaces(on rental bases) is being provided to promote living and working in the same campus, to reduce transportation cost and less vehicular activities. Unscripted tries to solve all modern day problems of the housing.
Manav Rathod
April 19, 2023
Honorable Mention
Woman´s House
Team: Luca Augusto Ana Clara Cavalcante Gustavo Zorzeto Caio César Isabela Drumond Caio Frederico e Silva Roberta Carolina A. Faria Women’s role in society is based on an unequal historical construction driven by men. However, both women and men are equally paramount in terms of collective survival. Female fertility also symbolizes the fertility of a people, whose biological cycles are associated with the natural cycles of the Earth. The nature, materialized by the Casamance river, which permeates the Tanaff valley, is an element of fertility, since it is an important inducer of socioeconomic development in this village. The river’s flowing waters signify hope, which is embodied in outcomes from the fields, nurtured, to a greater proportion, by the hands of women. Inspired by the nature of women, associated with the natural dynamics of the Casamance River, the project pursues the idea of bringing a Social River to the center of Tanaf. Therefore, the building seeks to embrace encounters between diverse folks through cultural exchanges and knowledge cultivation. This Social River, embodied in the Women's House, symbolizes a place of welcome, development and empowerment, given its ability to support women who have suffered some kind of violence, to train women for the job market and to stimulate debates about gender equity. While the Casamance River tears through the natural landscape, this building seeks to disrupt the local political landscape built by a patriarchal and macho society. This house opens space for women's insertion in the political, administrative and economic sectors, or any other space where they want to occupy. Moreover, its organic and sinuous shape creates environments that favor the democratic gathering of female diversity and,at the same time, unveils, through its curves, the rise of gender equity in the region.
Luca Corrêa
April 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
Orphanage & Farm Niolo
Task The orphanage in Loango owns 10 hectares of land in the village of Niolo, 10 km away. The plan is to use the land to create a farm, the operation of which would contribute and enable financial support for the operation of the orphanage. In connection with this, there should be accommodation for the farm manager, a storage room for tools and accommodation for children from the orphanage, who could come during the holidays and learn about the operation of the farm. There are currently two small buildings on the property that are inadequate. Charity The project was created with the cooperation of a Czech charity and architects and designers. As part of the charity collection, money will be collected for the implementation of the project in Niolo in DR Congo. Annotation The land is transformed into a mosaic of fields and orchards with various agricultural uses. The fields are irrigated using a pond from a connected nearby stream. The ponds are also used for planting and bathing. A service road between Loangu and Tshela crosses the field. In the southern corner of the property, there is a home for orphans and the caretaker's farm family, and then a repaired "larger" existing building, which serves as a tool store, a sanitary facilities facility, and an insaka social meeting space, typical of the local culture. The "smaller" existing building is recycled as a source of material due to its location on the plot and its poor condition. The main architectural design is the main building for living in the form of a longitudinal dome with a gable roof, which together covers the housing of the administrator, orphans, technical facilities and warehouses. The center of the dome is a veranda for multifunctional use, together with a drawing board wall. The entire structure is raised above ground level for protection from the elements and also offers seating around the perimeter. The design of the building is based on the concept of an operational solution, a view, local identity and tradition. The sustainability of the project is supported by the production of electricity using PV panels from the abundant local sunlight. The object is thus self-sufficient off grid and can try to establish communication with the "Akon Lighting Africa" platform. Rainwater is collected in retention tanks and used for washing, cleaning and hygiene, irrigation. The material solution uses local materials and technologies and processes so that the building retains the local atmosphere and is maintainable without complications. We use concrete foundations and slabs and a reinforcing ring, fired and unfired bricks, clay plasters, wooden fillings of structures and linings, steel design grids. The roof structure consists of a steel truss made of jackl profiles, corrugated sheet metal and palm leaves. The internal microclimate creates a pleasant environment thanks to sufficient lighting and shielding against overheating. Clay plasters regulate the humidity in the space well. Ventilation is natural with the help of transverse windows and ventilation openings. All openings in the perimeter envelope are equipped with a mosquito net against insects. We create a sustainable architecture and a pleasant environment for social interaction and knowledge. Location: village Niolo in DR Congo, Africa, 10 km from village Loango Site: 10 ha = 100 000 m2 Field program: rice, beans, palm oil, orchards, sheepfold, henhouse, ponds, etc. Building program: orphanage, farm's house, sanitary facilities, insaka, reconstruction of existing house
Jiří Petrželka
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
Golden Systems
This project takes a variety of figures from the plates of German zoologist Ernst Haeckel and, using an abstract form, creates a series of pavilions focusing on the celebration and rebirth of nature. Each pavilion has a unique purpose, from composting to water capture to solar energy capture to plant growth, which help to promote regrowth in an area which has suffered from deforestation. In juxtaposition to their purposes is the materiality, which is meant to both highlight the delicate nature of these plants, hide the machine aspect in a thing of beauty, and bring attention to the celebratory aspect of the pavilion. The representations which cover the pavilions are that of orchids, varietal mosses, and leaves, all meant to show the nature which humans are slowly stripping away.
Abby Lagana
April 8, 2023
Honorable Mention
Plot Thickened
‘Plot Thickened’ explores the design of a space to accommodate three programs in an assigned interior renovation site. Play, tiered seating, and exploration spaces are integrated in a way that overlap and interact to create unique conditions inspired by Rem Koolhaas' Downtown Athletic Club. Children are encouraged to learn the forms of plant biology through massive plant cell structures and spiraling multi- level flower spikes with the intent to get lost and discover new spaces at every turn. Material: yarn, clay, foam core Methods: crochet, clay hand building
Taylor GIlbert
April 22, 2023
Honorable Mention
Chrome Chasm
Similar to the painting “Annibal Simla” by Le Corbusier in 1951, space is layered, rooms within rooms are composed to hold a bath house. Decomposition of the painting into individual objects takes place, each property and significance is evaluated individually, finally creating a new volumetric composition. Each object’s properties contribute to the overall forms and distinctions between different rooms. The objects themselves undergo a series of clashes and shifts to create an object-void relationship as the centerpiece, with voids becoming rooms within rooms, while discrete objects hover outside establishing additional connections. The main mass holds the critical voids, the main bathing chamber, and the passage hall. These spaces become critical experiences as they are grandiose and complex. Connecting voids create moments of compression and release, articulating distinctions between main voids and transitional spaces to allow for separate rooms. These moments also give greater value to the open spaces below, enhancing the bathing experience. To create a continuous atmosphere between various voids and objects, chrome is the continuous material that speaks to the repetition of forms through reflections. The bouncing colored lights help designate zones for different experiences while aiding in the continuous feel, despite the strong geometry at present. The project dwells under a waterfall engulfed in rocks, receiving water to fill the baths and flowing freely beyond. Rather than having separate pools, the water flows throughout the voids to enhance the continuous feel. Even as the geometry changes, the water flows continuously, reinforcing the concept of separate entities forming a continuous space.
Sabrina Akbarally
April 8, 2023
Honorable Mention
Manhattan Earth Institute
The Manhattan Earth Institute was completed for the Foundation IV, Pre-professional Architecture Studio at the University of Virginia. The project site is located in Manhattanville, New York City, USA. The site’s inevitable relationship with the waterfront unfolds a two-tier future for coastal Manhattan: the adaptive negotiation with water and the abandonment of the era as we know it. The project aims to be adaptable not only in the ways that it deals with climate exigencies but also the ways people inhabit spaces. The project explores and frames space with a flexible kit of parts: ground, scaffold, promenade, and facade, and creates a dialogue of solidity and openness. As inspired by El Lissitzky’s prouns, the project challenges the conformity to traditional building envelopes, clear boundary between indoor and outdoor spaces, and solid reading of the ground plane, thus inviting inclusive readings of the space and creating more resilient identities. As a project meant to be perceived in fragments, moments, and scenes, the Manhattan Earth Institute is a manifesto towards the uncertainty of our time.
Haoran Zhang
April 13, 2023
Honorable Mention
Honorable Mention
THE LIVING DAM
The concept of The Living Dam is to create a harmonious relationship between architecture and nature, allowing visitors to experience and appreciate the nature of King Talal Dam. The design is centered around the notion of the symbiotic living. The interpretation center and visitor center act as educational facilities that inform visitors of the importance of the natural conservation and the natural enviroment. The Living Dam is a passive design that blends seamlessly into its surroundings, utilizing sustainable and renewable materials. The living dam design incorporates with the existing dam structure, creating a building that is functional and elegant without sacrificing the natural beauty of the site. The essense of nature is woven throughout the project, promoting the role it plays in our daily lives while simultaneously providing a spaces for visitors to connect with the outdoors. resulting an immersive experience for visitors with an emphasis on sensory stimulation, encouraging them to explore and connect with the natural world.
Rabie Al Ashi
April 20, 2023
Honorable Mention
TO-GATHER
"TO-GATHER" gives the meaning of different individuals that came from different backgrounds in an area to gather around in a certain space and to gather that brings peace and harmony which is how a community is created as well as the gathering space becomes the meeting point for the public .This building serves as a dancing pavilion that offers traditional Kelantanese dance classes for visitors. Even beginners need not worry, as our professional and talented tutors will provide attentive instruction. Visitors can also enjoy other activities, such as having a coffee at the outdoor cafe or tasting wine with our skilled bartender, all while surrounded by a high-class atmosphere. Additionally, visitors can explore the gallery to learn about traditional Kelantanese dance and gain experience. This building was designed with an open space concept in mind to achieve passive design. Its unique construction incorporates louvers to allow for increased air ventilation. The main studio area features a sprung floor material that is designed to prevent injuries to dancers during training.
LIM PUI SAN
March 13, 2023
Honorable Mention
Tropicália Portal
This project was developed for the subject "Architecture Project 5 - High Rise Building". The project was entirely conceived by the group. Currently (2024), we are architecture students at the School of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Brasilia, in Brazil. The project was carried out during the ninth semester of the course. Group members: Alana Menezes Caldas Daniele Feliciano da Mota Fabiana Bitar Resende Malu Fernandes de Faria Matheus Rudo Antoniassi Pereira de Oliveira Millena de Menezes Dutra Advisors: Ludmilla Santos de Andrade Cynthia Nojimoto The Tropicália Portal is an architectural complex that brings together inspirations from São Paulo and great Brazilian architects. The project is composed of two buildings: the Malfatti Residential Complex and the Tarsila Commercial Complex. The name makes reference to the Tropicália cultural movement, which emerged in the 1960s in Brazil and had as its proposal the mixture of different cultural elements, such as music, art, literature, and politics. The Malfatti Residential Complex was a structural challenge and counted on the inspiration of great names of Brazilian architecture, such as Oscar Niemeyer and Rosa Kliass. Steel cables were used between the balcony beams and the central pillars to provide greater interlock and stability, and to reduce buckling and torsion in that region of the structure. The building is a tribute to Italian-Brazilian modernist architect Lina Bo Bardi, who designed MASP, the São Paulo Art Museum. The Tarsila Commercial Complex has a much simpler floor structure, without the need for balcony beams. The goal is that the small projections on the balconies are used for vegetation, creating a more pleasant and sustainable environment. The name is a reference to the modernist painter Tarsila do Amaral, one of the main representatives of the Brazilian anthropophagic movement, which also proposed the mixing of different cultures and traditions. The Tropicália Portal project counted on the analysis of three faces of São Paulo: the city we have, the city we want, and the city we will have. The surrounding works were studied to respect the project's implementation, and architectural works that dialog with the project's message were analyzed, representing the architecture and admired sights of the city, such as the Copan building, the cable-stayed bridge, and the exuberant landscape designed by Rosa Kliass in the Anhangabaú valley. The WOHA office was also a source of inspiration. With an efficient vertical circulation system, the project contributes to the city's urban mobility and becomes an integral part of São Paulo's urban landscape. The Tropicália Portal is an example of how architecture can be used to create more functional, pleasant, and sustainable urban spaces.
Matheus Rudo Antoniassi Pereira de Oliveira
April 16, 2023
Honorable Mention
How to design a fountain
How to design a fountain Designing a fountain is easy First you need water or something else liquid? When you have water? Make it do something Make her walk Make her talk Make her dance or make her cry Be with her Take care of her and you will have a friend. How to design a fountain is a poem about identifying fountains; comparing and finding similarities between fountains and living objects such as movement, flow, sound and emotions. What is a fountain? For me, a fountain can be divided into two different categories: 1) monuments 2) art installations Aldo Rossi describes a monument as objects that bear witness to the presence of the past in the present and as such, are a reflection of our collective memory. Distinguishing an art installation from a monument, an art installation does not have the reflection of our collective memory. It is just a man-made artifact. Fountain in the most simplistic way: combine water (or liquid?) with an element of surprise, admiration, or appreciation. By doing so, a person gives meaning to the creation. Meaning of the urban artifact, such as fountain, can be different for every person. For example: for one, a fountain can be a place to think, to other, a place to wash, drink, swim, play or meet with friends. Furthermore, it can have a constant change of identities, functions and meanings. A Manneken Pis in Brussels, Belgium is an example of changing identity of a monument regarding to different events with the change of the clothes that the monument is wearing. Example of changing the function: The place of the Lydia Koidula park fountain is used as a stage for light installations during the winter months in Pärnu, Estonia, when the fountains are turned off. For the creation to become important in one’s life; It has to have a special bond between the person and the object. The same effect is also between two people and similar effect should also be between the creator and the artifact. To make an artifact special, people should treat it with the same care and attention as they do living creatures. This highlights the importance of designing fountains that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also have a meaningful connection to the people who interact with the fountains. During the research I visited different fountains in Melbourne; spent time and „talked“ with the Walker fountain, Grey Street fountain and Macpherson Robertson Fountain. Meeting these three fountains; their existence to people is irrelevant, people do not interact with the fountains and these fountains exist only as simple objects. People walk past the fountains and often do not even notice the fountain. This raises the question of how to design a fountain that is meaningful to people, one that brings people together and makes the fountain an important artifact in the city. How to increase the communication, relationship and caretaking between people and a fountain; To achieve this, there must be a symbiotic relationship between the person and the fountain. The symbiosis between people and fountains is a critical factor in creating a sense of place and fostering community. If there is no communication, relationship and caretaking between people and the fountains, they have no reason to exist; they do not „say“ anything to us. While fountains (can) have an impact on the the air quality, biodiversity and temperature of the city; fountains should not be designed just for these reasons or there will be a chance that the communication between people and a fountain will be lost and the fountain will not be used by people. People do things because they want to do it. To make communication between people and the fountain, people have to want to have the communication with the fountain.
Harold Kiisler
April 18, 2023
Honorable Mention
Hyperloop Station – Passenger Terminal: transport by capsules
The constant global transformations require more efficient transport and sustainable mobility infrastructures that make it possible to connect cities and create a global system of economic-socio-spatial development. In this sense, one of the means of transport that stands out in terms of innovation and technology is the Hyperloop. Pressurized capsules float on a magnetic layer inside depressurized tubes, with no resistance to friction from rails and air, reaching ultra-speeds. This concept is considered one of the futures of transport and it is being developed by several companies around the world. With speeds ranging from 600 to 1,200 km/h, it connects cities, reduces distances and creates production chains with better logistics, as well as a circular and shared economy. One of the main poles of socioeconomic development in Brazil is constituted as a connection between two metropolitan regions of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Porto Alegre and Caxias do Sul form a mobility corridor with high daily traffic of people and goods. Existing highways are mostly single lane and with many curves, which increases travel time between cities. In this sense, new and more efficient means of transport should be proposed linking the two largest hubs in the state. In this way, this project is based on information from the study developed by the State Government and proposes to develop an architectural proposal for the Central Station for passengers on this route. The city of Porto Alegre is chosen to carry out the Hyperloop Passenger Terminal project. The choice of location is justified by the local, regional impact and economic potential of the region of influence where the Hyperloop Station will be deployed. Propose a building to support the activities of the Hyperloop Station with conditions of an exceptional nature, enabling the theme to develop the form. The operational technological system of the behavior of the Hyperloop capsules is taken as a basis to conceptualize the party. The capsules are pressurized and float on a magnetic layer inside tubes. In addition, the capsule's geometry has been developed to increase aerodynamics, and without touching the rails, the capsules float in an air pocket. This floating is materialized causing the volume to land on the ground, a sculpture touching the square, but ready to leave. With strict lines, a roof is delimited in 200x200m, configuring a foyer square. From the roof, there is an approach to the ground, in an organic way, tangent to the support cylinder. Volumetry with futuristic language and lines thought of in aerodynamics. The Hyperloop Station project proposal for the city of Porto Alegre demonstrates the architecture's ability to include mobility issues between cities at the scale of a building. The objective of this project was to test how new approaches to themes and new technologies will be developed in the form of objects built in cities and how they will behave in terms of building character in relation to the already built urban space. Future perspectives are that more innovative transport technologies are studied to make cities more efficient with innovation and technologies, making architecture a means of making the world more connected and sustainable. These principles initiate the experience in using the new means of Transport, the Hyperloop.
Guilherme Biondo Milani
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
H02 (House Option 2)
DESIGN TASK The task was to rewrite the architect’s "parents" life stories and design a house that caters to the needs of these characters that exists today, in the site where they are residing now as the House Option 2. First, the architect was required to create a unique (Oscar worthy) profile for the users and then conduct a detailed study and analysis of the site to understand how best to respond to the context; meanwhile the architect had to identify the needs of the users and formulate a Design brief which will in turn translate to a creative built form. However, the following functional requirements must be incorporated; Space for living & dining, master bed room & bathroom, guest bed room & bathroom, kitchen and a single car port. Total area to not exceed 1750sqft and must have a minimum of 2 levels, the choice of materials must be logical, innovative and contemporary. DESIGN & CONCEPTUAL APPROACH Oscar-worthy Client Profiles: Mr D (Wildlife researcher) — singer, loves documenting and photographing wildlife, bookworm Mrs D (Veternarian) — harpist, would house all stray animals if possible, biophilic, ambivert Together — sings together (neighbours enjoy their free concerts), feeds & nurtures the stray dogs and cats in the village, engages in deep conversations (they love rain as it reminds them of the day they met) Site Location: Village in Kurunegala, Sri Lanka (with amazing views of mountains) Architect’s Brief: Living & Dining area Wife’s clinic Husbands Photography/Research Area 2 Bedrooms 1 Kitchen 2 Bathrooms Single Car Port Concept: The Symphony of Man & Nature Creating a harmony between the users and nature. Letting the users sing at their own house for the neighbours to hear as well but also preserving their privacy. The shape of the megaphone is the secret to how it amplifies sound. It acts like a funnel that channels sound waves and focuses them towards one direction. The precedent study “Ruup” showed how wooden cones layed in a forest acted as a sound amplifier for nature and also people who performed acoustical concerts in these cones. The precedent study “Silence Amplifier”, just as the name suggests, amplifies the silence and soothing sounds of nature in the apex of the cone.
Menusha Ariyaratne
March 4, 2023
Honorable Mention
ARCH⌒HOUSE
Project Arch-House is a residential project located in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The 1300sqm site is divided into four blocks, each with a different façade and layout. The project was designed to be sustainable and environmentally friendly, with a focus on using natural materials and reducing energy consumption.
SIDDHARTH SHARMA
March 9, 2023
Honorable Mention
CITY-TWIST
CITY-TWIST is a mixed-use building that contains a large mall and an office tower that lies in the heart of El Alamein city and is located in a very unique place, with 2 main roads that connect the city from the north coast to Alexandria along with the beautiful calming sea that is unfortunately distant. The architecture of the project is based on the idea of twisting and turning to create a flowing and organic form. The mall occupies the lower level of the building and features a large variety of stores, while the office tower is located on the upper level and features stunning views of the sea.
Karim Enany
March 6, 2023
Honorable Mention
Urban Living Room
Make, Watch, Share. The Edinburgh Film Institute (EFI) revitalizes Stockbridge with its innovative design and function. The institute serves as an urban living room, providing seamless access to the street and river. The multifunctional foyer encourages community interaction and promotes filmmaking as an art form. Additionally, the EFI offers an accessible learning and experience acquisition platform for all skill levels, housed in a modern and efficient studio space. Its double skin façade controls light, displays ongoing events, and creates uniformly lit indoor spaces. The stepped park by the river adds attraction to the institute and provides a resting spot along the Water of Leith.
Nejc Petric
April 28, 2023
Honorable Mention
zwiegespräche
The result of the first Jura water correction, during which the course of the Alte Zihl was straightened, and the lake levels were lowered on average, is a predominantly cultivated landscape, which contrasts with the more dynamic wetlands along the silted-up lake shores and at the arm of the Alte Zihl. The corset of the Zihl Canal is alternately loosened to increase capacity and in reminiscence of the former meandering river courses, so that wetlands can expand into a continuum through the valley in the most self-regulating way possible in favor of differentiated habitats for humans and animals. After the first initial plantings, a cultivated arm of trees with a bordering willow cover establishes itself as a vegetative reaction to the changed soil conditions. As a counterpart to the contour in the form of a topographical step, the Zihl is accompanied by a dam on the cultivated land side, which, in combination with the revised inland canal infrastructure and newly planned pumping stations, satisfies the need for a more directly controllable water balance and enables the cultivation of a wide variety of different cultures. These two interventions in the topography fit into the linearity of the transport infrastructures in the valley and oscillate around the existing Zihl canal, which is technically and formally exaggerated by the renewable energy production in form of a wind power plant. The existing facilities of the last Swiss oil refinery will be adapted in the longer term by a wood processing industry. The exaggeration of existing spatial qualities is aimed at mutually fertilizing interactions in the sense of a contrapost, which helps the processes in the landscape to develop in an identity-forming way and radiates beyond the valley borders. Students: David Hauser | Andreas Hasler University: ETH Zurich | Prof. Martina Voser | Amplitudes | HS 21 Instagram: @dahauser_ | @an_hasler
David Hauser | Andreas Hasler
March 16, 2023
Honorable Mention
River God
There is still a lot of room for growth for Ai Drawing. If viewed as a tool, it has a lot of potential for development. If viewed as a new way of thinking, it should not be limited to a specific concept of a single artwork but rather valued for its breadth and future potential. In summary, we believe that developing a methodology that is applicable to a specific context is necessary to showcase the charm of Ai Drawing and its collaboration with human designers.
Archi Automata
March 19, 2023
Honorable Mention
The alluring fragmentation of a path
I remember the joy of exploring and discovering new places and paths thinking that I will find my own fictional world, a self-universe that consists of a diversity of elements and events that I used to imagine. I used to blindly follow the different paths and directions that nature would reserve for me. As I go further down, elements and fragmentations of nature guide me throughout my promenade as I'm able to touch and feel nature's textures while walking .The path winds through the woods, and as you get closer to the beach, the smell of salt water and the sound of the waves get stronger. The trees tower higher, and the sun is filtered through the leaves, creating a warm, comforting glow. I remember the feeling of being embraced by the trees, enveloped in the thick green foliage forming a sort of dark shelter. Finally, we can say that vision was always considered an essential element to define beauty and evaluate shapes colors and light. However, beauty in itself is not only a fulfillment of one sense which is vision but a combination of all our senses.
Rita Zreik
March 5, 2023
Honorable Mention
Pottery Barn
The pottery industry in Sri Lanka still uses traditional methods. Other countries have moved on to using new, modern methods of making pottery. It’s time that Sri Lanka’s pottery industry steps into the future. This industry is dying because the younger generation is drawn to new technology, and the solution is to use modern technology to develop the traditional craft of pottery. The concept of the project is “BRIDGING THE PAST INTO THE FUTURE” The building aims to show the younger generation new and improved ways to design pottery using modern technology while celebrating the roots of this industry. The primary users will be people who have some sort of knowledge of the industry and are seeking to do something different, something more.
Ranura Perera
March 13, 2023
Honorable Mention
AGRONOMIC HIGH SCHOOL
WITHIN THE ARCHITECTURE THEME, I PROPOSED TO OUTLINE AS MANY GREEN AREAS AS POSSIBLE: BE IT THOSE SPECIALIZED AND STUDY SPACES (GREENHOUSES), BUT ALSO MORE GREEN RECREATIONAL PLACES FOR STUDENTS. I CHOSE TO VOLUMETRICALLY MARK THE PROFILE OF THE HIGH SCHOOL BY A TOWER WITH GREENHOUSES, VISIBLE FROM THE STREET. THE STUDENTS ARE IN PERMANENT COMMUNICATION WITH THE GREEN, WHICH PERSONALIZES THIS EDUCATIONAL UNIT COMPARED TO AN ORDINARY HIGH SCHOOL.
Andreea Balanici
April 23, 2023
Honorable Mention
A VISION FOR PORTO
The evolution of the city of Porto during the last century and in the first two thousand years, has happened mainly towards the sea, that is in direction west regarding the historical center. In the last two decades, the interest of foreign funding has brought attention to the historic center by changing the town planning. This has returned to be the focal point of Porto whose extension has changed from transverse to axial. As a result, the pre-existing road ring found itself imprisoned in the urban network, becoming a scar inside the city fabric and a morphological barrier for communication and extension between the inside and outside of the city. This ring road called VCI is a high-speed road designed during the last century when the development forecasts of the city were different, and today instead finds itself splitting the city into two parts, separating the center from the rest. The VCI is a fundamental element for the north-south connection of the country and as a motorway with intersections at staggered levels has been designed at a distance that does not respect the floor of the city. Its share varies a lot during the journey and only on a few occasions is the same share of the city. Moreover the city of Porto suffers from a serious lack of greenery because the urbanization prior to the latest developments has realized the city park in the west towards the sea, as the development of the city in that sense was expected. Today all the hypothetical sites for the design of new green areas are located near the VCI that blocks their exploitation. Many of these are fragmented along the VCI as they are spaces of results born from a poorly urbanization of the space adjacent to the road. My design hypothesis is to intervene by modifying the layout of the VCI while maintaining its national function as a connecting element between the north and the south of the state and solve the relationship between the center of Porto and the north of the city, creating areas of interest that further improve this transition. The two main motorway tributaries that connect the north with the south of the country are the A28 and the A3 that connect to the VCI respectively to the Francos node and in a unique motorway junction near the barrio of Outerio. The pseudo-horizontal connection between these two nodes is the only portion of the motorway that only serves as a road ring. The design idea is to transform this connection into an urban road with crossroads, which solves the urban fabric and recovers these green spaces fragmented along the track. This high-speed transversal function can be achieved to the north of the city, away from the town, by an existing motorway connection similar to the one removed, the A4. The concept of intervention is to reinterpret this scar while maintaining its artificial morphology or treating it as a natural element such as the riverbed. Working on the banks of this as if they were banks with the construction of an urban road for part whose task is to first recreate the urban fabric of their shore and then connect with each other reusing the existing bridges. In this proposal the river bed is a long green corridor that sews the various spaces resulting in a single large vertical park with pedestrian cycle path. The relationship between the two roads and the route follows a principle of isolation of the green that takes advantage where possible the difference in altitude and when this is canceled is the path to take advantage of the new green spaces to get away from the road.Within the masterplan there are 5 highlights: The construction of a festival park; given the perfect location on the outskirts of the city with a direct connection to the airport, would give the city the opportunity to eliminate the problems of disturbance of the public peace as the park is located at the end of the industrial zone. Nowadays with the relocation of the industry these plants are almost abandoned and an investment in this could bring attention to the area. The realization of an industrial district for factory 4.0; With the passage of time the relocation of industry has become increasingly common subject and given the increasingly search for proximity of the human being, that is the need to be able to get things always in the shortest time possible, bring the industry back into the city is fundamental. The construction of a residential neighborhood; For the design of a neighborhood within a former junction road I decided instead to connect the urban fabric of the four neighboring neighborhoods I decided to create a central fifth that is isolated from the latter through a barrier that allows for more to the route cycle-pedestrian to get away from the road. The masterplan is based on the concept of Rietvield’s hand where the palm would be a collective garden, fulcrum of the neighborhood and element of connection, while the fingers are the increasingly private transition of the space of man. It follows therefore the principle of the intermediate kingdom, City - group - house, all the plots follow a hierarchy of increasing privicy, from the large collective garden, to the most private one of any allotment to that of the house. All pedestrian paths within the neighborhood have different paths than those of the street.I believe that following the period of pandemic and the consequent need to stay more time at home, the quality of the spaces surrounding your home and the ability to reach points of interest as quickly as possible on foot has become fundamental. The realization of a new vision of museum; The museum is now locked within its principles as a space for many years and loses more and more interest over time. In a fully mechanized world, what is the constraint on the creation of a museum as an art factory? From this question comes the idea of a space of production, exhibition and artistic training; a modern Renaissance workshop on a large scale, where artists have all the necessary spaces to be able to breathe and live art, despite a imposed mechanism. The idea is to create a system of three buildings connected by an arm that plays for one sense the function of the path and for the other that of transport of the works from the production space to the exposure part passing through the training. A machine for art that lives the work as an element of mechanized production, that is, from the moment it is still raw material to the moment of sale.
Edoardo Caveglia
April 23, 2023
Honorable Mention
THE FORMICARIUM Center and interpretation trail
The intervention site is located in the district of El-Hamma, at the end of the amphitheater of the bay of Algiers. This part of the city represents a cultural and heritage richness, both in the past and in the present, through its historical monuments which have contributed to the artistic influence on a national scale, such as the villa Abd el-tif, nicknamed the "Villa Medici of Algiers" and the National Museum of Fine Arts. By its nature and its relief, the site represents an important natural and landscape heritage. Nevertheless, he plays two different roles at once. The first is to offer environmental and landscape qualities specific to the place, while the latter through its topography represents in parallel a constraint and a barrier which divides the city and enclaves the urban entities constituting the site. from this context emerges the problematic of the project: How to articulate the lower part of the Boulevard -Mohamed Belouizdad- to the upper part of the site, while taking advantage of the latter's heritage sequences and reinforcing its environmental, heritage and cultural potential with a minimum of impact on the natural terrain, and by ensuring its independence as an urban organism (limit, polarity and route). In order to respond to the problematic, we are proposing a project involving an interpretation trail “the formicarium”. It will house several sequences to ensure the articulation between the entity of El Hamma and the barrier entity, to establish a connection with the upper part by crossing the natural barrier and finally the enhancement of the existing built heritage. The work that we present, proposes to fit between the two roles of the site, taking advantage of both the natural, landscape and environmental qualities, while transforming, through our design, the constraints of the site into strengths for a project. complex and unique similar to the site of intervention, and which integrates perfectly into the latter. With the consideration of the heritage and architectural potentialities, the so-called concept of "interpretation" of the context and of the site itself has been put in place, while targeting the following process: through interpretation we reach understanding, by understanding; appreciation and through appreciation protection.
Lyes Ahmed ZAHAFI
April 23, 2023
Honorable Mention
Port-fouad Sustainable Innovation Hub
NEW SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO CREATE AN INTRESTING SMART FLEXIBLE BUILDING SHOWING INTERSECTING POINT BETWEEN THE BUSINESS PARTNERS (INVESTORS) AND NEW STARTUPS REPRESENTED AS ENTREPRENEURS, GIVE THE YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES TO STAND OUT AND HAVE A BRIGHT FUTURE THAT INCLUDES SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTS CONTRIBUTING TO GREEN ECONOMY
Samaher Abouauf
March 14, 2023
Honorable Mention
Redevelopment of Mkunguni Square, Old town Lamu
Old town Lamu has survived into the twentieth century due to several fortunate circumstances, the remoteness of the area and the absence of roads and vehicles on the island have prevented many irreversible changes associated with modernization. At the same time, Lamu’s position as a regional center and its active seaport have ensured the continued economic well-being of the town. Lamu has thus been spared the fate of so many other historical towns around the world which have either been transformed by uncontrolled development or abandoned as a result of economic decline. However, a combination of limited resources and rapid population growth is putting enormous pressure on the Old town, its buildings, and its infrastructure. Moreover, changing standards of living are leading residents to radically alter the old buildings and imported methods and materials are being used to build new buildings that are well suited to the local conditions.There is little doubt that if allowed to continue unchecked, these pressures and changes will undermine and eventually destroy the historical structure and character of the Old town. Both Lamu’s natural and man-made resources will need to be carefully planned in the future if the town is to remain a liveable urban center and a cultural asset for all of Kenya. The only means of achieving this objective is with a policy of conservation that fosters careful management of resources and promotes balanced growth and development. The policy will help the Swahili community to preserve its precious assets and urban space. This project is therefore meant to serve as a prototype of how the urban space in Lamu should be planned and designed. In general the project advocates for designers to maintain the identity and integrity of their site's context.
VALENTINE KALEI
March 18, 2023
Honorable Mention
Utopia : An idealized memorial in the sunshine
The poet Lee Sang-Hwa had a great impact on society in terms of the development of modern literature and national resistance during the Japanese occupation, and it is worthwhile to create a space to recognize and honor him in order to pass on these achievements to future generations. By selecting the representative work 'Does Spring Come Even in the Deprived Fields' from among Lee's works, I began to focus on building a space based on literary expressions from the poem, and tried to project his 'romantic' tendency to search for an ideal home into the space. As a result, I was able to derive UTOPIA from his search for the ideal and proceeded with the work using it as a concept.
Jinhyeok Hwang
April 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
NEW MEANS OF THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS IN NATURE
This project studies from the Acropolis of Athens and gets situated in the south bay tidal wetland in the upstate New York. Acropolis is primarily dedicated to the goddess Athena in Greek mythology. The means is to keep what is sacred inside. Original acropolis was not designed for pure aesthetics, but for good defense and to manipulate perspectives by precise proportion alignment and part to whole relationship. In this project of the museum of nature, natural phenomena provide the higher importance. Museums are oriented according to the landscape to demonstrate respect to nature. The experience starts with a ramp and is derived into three axes, air, water, and earth. The floating island celebrates the tension between human and nature. Visitors are forced to look at it at the end of all three axes, but only able to take a boat there at certain seasons. Architecture itself is like a petri dish. It is artificial, but neutral. It says nothing, but carefully curates fauna and flora in different scales, even water. With rising water levels, different exhibits become active. Bulkhead is the construction method used in structural elements, learning from piers in the Hudson river.
elena yu
March 20, 2023
Honorable Mention
(Re)ACTING on the lavadouros of Porto
ABOUT This master thesis was conducted during the academic year 2022 by Chiara De Libero and Maria Margherita Innocenti with the support of the Chair of Architecture and Urban Transformation and the Chair of Theory and History of Urban Design at ETH Zurich. PROJECT DESCRIPTION Wash-houses may appear, to the untrained eye, as mere urban leftovers, unconscious memories of the past, remnants of infrastructures deprived by the time of their function and at the mercy of an uncertain future. Porto's 26 wash-houses are in reality precious spaces for the urban life, strategic points with the potential to simultaneously provide access to the resource of water and to that of collective space. And rather than being in resigned waiting, they have already been creatively reinterpreted by human activities. The different needs and practices of the people gravitating around them is slowly transforming each wash-house into a unique example, at times a temple of intimacy and silence, at times a busy passing space, at times a quiet meeting place. We encountered the wash-houses of Porto more than a year ago and have since then been engaging with these spaces. Through archive research, interviews, walks, live performances and mock-ups we formed and consolidated our own personal, deep understanding of them. Thus, the main purpose of our work became precisely that of sharing our perception of the wash-houses with a larger audience, in the best case triggering a discussion about the future of these spaces in the city of Porto. With this aim we used the media of the video, which is more easily accessible and has the power to reach all the viewer’s senses. The introductory part of the movie in particular shows how important and present the wash-houses were for the city in the past and how they are today instead perceived as remains and are less taken care of. It also demonstrates, however, how exactly this condition of negligence in which they are today has allowed and allows the people who gravitate around the wash-houses to creatively reinterpret them following their needs and practices. While the wash-houses can and should be looked at altogether as a larger system, one cannot avoid considering each one of them with its specificities, resulting from their different histories, the different neighborhoods in which they are located, the different actors who use them. For this reason, out of the still existing 26 wash-houses, we chose to have a closer look at three case studies, which are shown in the last three chapters of the video. There, we go through their different histories, engage and discuss with the different groups of people who use them and propose different approaches to intervene on them.
Chiara De Libero
March 24, 2023
Honorable Mention
Lantern
Lantern, inspired by Kengo Kuma’s 120x120 Forest, is a model for a small residential home composed of modular prefabricated sections constructed out of a 120x120mm structural wooden lattice which is enclosed by structurally insulated panels (sips). The small site located in a model home park in Japan will benefit from off site construction where the modules will be shipped in allowing for a quick construction time. This project allowed me to focus on a small palette of materials and the Japanese culture to produce details to improve my understanding of the building system. The striking facade serves as a bold graphic tying it back to its precedent project while being a homage to traditional Shoji screens used to regulate light and shading, as well as privacy and add to the layered systems that comprise the structure.
Samuel Harrison
April 8, 2023
Honorable Mention
THE FLOATING PLAZA
Located in Barcelona, Plaza Calvó is situated in a propsperous part of the city. Lines with great views, mediteranean pine trees and in close proximity to Collserola, the largest natural park of the area, which serves as the lungs of Barcelona. A rigorous analysis of the site revealed multiple conclusions to us and an understanding of not just the plaza, but also the neighborhood as a whole. It helped us to visualise what is lacking- identifying existing problems, gaining familiarity with both the circulation and the energy of the site. It's clear that the plaza doesn't have many visitors and often stands out with its emptiness due to different problematic factors. One important problem to solve is the topography. Steep slopes make the plaza quite uncomfortable to visit. Without any terraces or ramps the visitor has to balance in an unpleasant way, which is even harder with the earthy ground laden with rocks. Another problem is that the plaza doesn't offer many activities, and those that are available are not frequently used and the lack of vegetation and of a continuous canopy proved to be a clear problem. It was also noted, however, that the plaza has a lot of potential in different ways. The proximity to the natural park of Collserola offers a project focused on two types of connections; a ecological one, and a social one. Could we create a green corridor for nature that at the same time facilitates the access for humans to reach a peaceful natural environment? The project is an answer to the needs obtained from the analysis and the objective therefore stood clear. We had to create new activities for both new visitors and old ones, solving the topographic problem, protecting the root systems of the existing trees and creating an enjoyable connection between the plaza and the natural park. It had to function as a beginning and as a finish line, and an attractive place to spend time. Taking all of these factors in consideration, the result ended up being a floating, interactive platform with built-in usage that respects its environment and the root system of the existing trees. By pedestrianising streets with low density of circulation, and establishing a continuous canopy from Collserola to the plaza, we managed to connect the park ecologically and socially. The project has been developed by a team of three second year students of the Landscaping Degree at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Aleix Aymerich Oliver, Vincent De Gasperi and Ariadna Garriga Ballarín). This project has been developed within the framework of the Workshop landscaping project (Winter 2022) taught by professors Sergi Carulla, Victoria Fiol and Manel Sangenis.
Vincent De Gasperi
April 23, 2023
Honorable Mention
Laksha Community Upliftment Center - (Through humanizing energy)
The project aims to empower the Laksha community by humanizing their energy needs, making them a sustainable and independent community. The Laksha community is suffering a lot with production rates falling as they do not have the proper facilities to continue production during long power cuts. Most artisans have either moved back to using slow, primitive methods or have completely given up on the industry. We can solve this issue by humanizing their energy needs. They can use their own wood waste from production as fuel for a biomass energy generator and power up their lathes, sustaining them and making them independent of the local power grid. We have made energy in the community for the community.
Ranura Perera
March 13, 2023
Honorable Mention
ORIGAMI TOWER
THE ORIGAMI TOWER WAS BORN AS THE SUPERIMPOSITION OF SEVERAL CELLS, STUDIED AND CREATED IN A VERY LIMITED SPACE OF CUBIC SHAPE WITH 7m SIDE. THE DUPLEX, FROM WHICH THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOWER LATER FOLLOWED, PRESENTS AN ELEMENT OF INTERNAL CONNECTION BETWEEN THE LOWER AND UPPER LEVELS, BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS THAT DISTINGUISH IT CAN BE HIGHLIGHTED, WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE WINDOW FRAMES AND THE THEY HAVE A SPECIFIC FUNCTION: TO HIDE WHAT IS HAPPENING INSIDE AND DO IT THROUGH A GAME OF “FOLDING” (TERM FROM WHICH THE WORD ORIGAMI COMES FROM) . THE DIFFERENT CELLS WERE THEN CONNECTED THROUGH AN EXTERNAL LADDER WHICH BECOMES THE EMBLEM OF THE WORD "PARASITE" AS IT IS PURPOSELY INSERTED INTO THE CONTEXT.
Augusto Oliva
March 20, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Fabric of Change
This project is part of a fourth-year Architecture studio. The 70-acre site in Tirana, Albania, is slated for redevelopment as part of the city’s plans for high-end architecture and a park. However, this redevelopment poses a threat to the informal settlements and wildlife located on the site. In response, this project seeks to provide livable and recreational spaces for the current residents through tactical architecture interventions that address water insecurity, lack of shelter, and insufficient promotion of activism. The project features several ‘Warka Water’ structures, strategically placed as nodes that connect different programming on the site.
Mouhamad Jamili
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
Honorable Mention
BUILDING 1.0 | OPEN DESIGN ACADEMY
In the bustling heart of Vienna, near the Donau Canal, Building 1.0 offers our take on sustainability and adaptability through architecture. The whole structure is half temporary, reflecting the fast-paced, ever-changing world we live in. The academy is like a "software" for buildings, as it can be quickly updated and adapted to fit educational, social, and urban evolving needs. The temporary section can be easily taken apart and rebuilt for different purposes, such as providing housing for refugees our hosting a summer festival when classes are not in session. Roof openings ensure that everything built under the public terrace will be ventilated and enlightened sufficiantly. By breaking away from traditional, fixed architecture, Building 1.0 mirrors the flexibility and adaptability seen in modern technology. This design is our take on how architecture should evolve with the times. We dont design a building that fits one need perfectly, we design every building all at once. This project was part of the studio "Gebäudelehre" | Open Design Academy. We, Marlon Berger & August Eckmann, finished it in the fifth's semester of our Bachelor of Architecture.
Marlon Berger
April 23, 2023
Honorable Mention
La Máquina de Hábitats
This project finds its objective in the change of paradigm that this new stage of space exploration will entail when the International Space Station will have its functions finished. The main objective of the new stage main objective will no longer be solely the investigation of the environment. It will focus on human habitation, towards the first migrations: it will encourage unusual relationships between the human being and this context. This process demands from architecture a profound reflection on the relationship between human beings and their tangible and intangible environment. From theories of habitation and construction techniques, it is investigated and proposed that space exploration continues to the next stage based on what has allowed human beings their evolution and subsistence: the Earth. Under the concept of “worlding”, it is proposed that space architecture should take ecosystems as its main basis, instead of their isolation. La Maquina de Habitats proposes questioning the view of architecture as a refuge from the ecosystem and taking it as the axis of design in order to use its cycles as a source of production and renewal of the resources necessary for human survival in space.
Cesar Requejo
April 29, 2023
Honorable Mention
Thinking Architecture - The project method of Enric miralles
The exhibition design is based on the transposition of the key words FLOW, DISCOVERY, CONTAMINATION and DENSITY into space. The layout is the primary means of communication of the exhibition and will actively guide the visitor within the exhibition path through its spatiality. To simplify the enjoyment of the exhibition, the space has been divided into thematic areas related to the relationship with the landscape, layerization of time, and the relationship with Catalan architectural culture. The exhibition will be developed along a linear and flowing space with a purely theoretical character, in which writings, interviews and films will be displayed. It will have a propaedeutic and introductory function to the areas in which the visitor will find the design application of what has been seen up to that point. Thus following the diphthong Theory-Praxis. Space is permeable. The boundaries of the spheres are physically defined and impassable but allow glimpses and perceptions of what is happening beyond. Permeability provides the opportunity for overwriting. The designed overwriting allows the space to present itself as more or less dense, so, in the beginning, heterogeneous forms and contents alternate recalling the congestion generated by the overabundance of information in the design approach, and only by progressing through the space, the various spheres from time to time become knowable and ordered making the “designed chaos” of the overview dissolve. The environments follow one another fluidly without ever marking a point of beginning and an end. The visitor moves within a space composed essentially of lines of light. It delimits, guides, overwrites, mystifies and clarifies. The transition between one ‘environment and another is always mediated by devices that guide the visitor through the flow without ever creating abrupt transitions. As one travels through the space, the congestion diminishes, the overwriting becomes writing, the lights rise and establish a quieter relationship with the Basilica, and the spaces become wider until they lose the conformation of flow to take on that of a square. It is the place where Miralles’ design thinking meets Catalan tradition. The two interpenetrate to the point where all division loses meaning so the spaces merge. The ostensive system also responds to the principle of ‘interactivity however in a gestural way. The particular lighting is entrusted to a lamp stretched between the tracks of the structure. It is the visitor then, should he need more light, who has to take the lamp to “discover” the exhibited object. The relationship with the pre-existence is illusory: the installation, which moves arbitrarily within the Basilica Palladiana, establishes a relationship with it constantly is made of juxtapositions, deviations and reflections. The sometimes more sometimes less dense lighting transforms the pre-existence into a hinted presence, a feeling of enclosure.
Simone Damiani
April 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
Cascade Public Library
Cascade Public Library is the design for a branch library located in Chelsea, Manhattan. The building places an emphasis on the environmental strategy of the building to create a more energy efficient design. Utilizing a natural ventilation airflow and a radiant slab system, various thermal zones are created throughout the building. This allows for different areas of the library to be kept at different temperatures throughout the year to reduce the amount of energy output from the building. The thermal zones are identified by the various cubes throughout the spaces, making them easily spotted by the public. To further develop this idea, the building employs several types of operable window modules and terraces to allow the building to connect with the outside when the weather is nice. This provides a unique experience for people by bringing the outdoors inside. Many libraries will try to engage people by bringing the books outside, but instead Cascade seeks to bring the outdoors to the people. The building employs a bubble deck slab system to help reduce the overall slab depth and integrate with the radiant floor heating system. This system allows for the ceiling and majority of the building to be devoid of traditional HVAC since the environmental strategy of the building would require very little ductwork. The few ducts the building needs would be concealed in the top of the wall partitions of the isolated zones to help provide air circulation. Working together, the building systems will help to minimize the overall energy consumption of the building and reduce its footprint on the environment.
Richard Gennaro
April 9, 2023
Honorable Mention
hyphanein
Tasked with the problem of designing a space that fosters collective memory and unity in an incredibly divided society, we acknowledge not only a disunity in our society, but also an immense lack of understanding. We are a society operating in darkness. Our project is a proposal for Meridian Hill Park, in Washington, DC, a place rich in culture and history. In our initial research of several texts, we came across this word “hyphainein” which is used by Sarah Robinson in her work “Architecture is a Verb.” The word has two meanings, one literal “to weave” and a metaphorical meaning, “to bring to light.” This word was all-encompassing in what we intended to do through our landscape and architectural proposal; we want to both weave together diverse communities, and also illuminate their struggles, their histories, and their concerns in an effort to create a better understanding amongst and across different groups of people. This goal we felt would be best accomplished through the use of storytelling; to build a phenomenal space is to memorialize a necessary story. We believe storytelling is a way to greater understand and empathize with one another with the goal of reconnecting society. We even took into account a non-profit organization, entitled StoryCorps, in designing our proposal for the site. We are proposing a space for them to grow their non-profit and oversee the events and programs that take place in the park. StoryCorps is notable for its program One Small Step; One Small Step is an effort to remind the country of the humanity in all of us, even those with whom we disagree. It is an initiative to bridge political divides, one conversation at a time through the recording of a conversation between two people with opposing political views. With this in mind, we began our design process, one that integrates spaces for storytelling throughout the entirety of the site in both architectural and landscape formations. Our design proposal includes making the entire park accessible for all people through the use of two ramps that weave throughout the park and bring visitors on a journey through the past and present and reframing the existing monuments to become a catalyst for storytelling. How can we propose to unite a community when those with disabilities are excluded by the very architecture we create? This is why we chose to use paths and ramps that connect all four corners of the site and lead occupants on a journey through the past and present.
Katherine Kaderabek
April 12, 2023
Honorable Mention
Sargatopia
This project explores a new urban community deeply tied to Sargassum, a natural, carbon sequestering macro-algae that has grown uncontrollably in the Atlantic Ocean over the past decade. It is sourced before it reaches the Caribbean shores, after which it is processed to create raw material for construction. The sargassum based material offers low embodied carbon along with opportunities to experiment with load bearing masonry construction. After agreeing upon a localized building and ethical framework, members are given the freedom to build on their own, resulting in a ground up, iterative approach that explores new ways of living in an eco-based urbanism.
Daniel Vanderhorst
March 27, 2023
Honorable Mention
PORTO DE ENCONTRO
SINCE BELEM IS A HUB FOR THE ECONOMY OF THE NORTH, A NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS ARE TOURING THE CITY THROUGH THE AMAZONIAN PORTS FROM BELEM TO MANAUS. CONSUMERS TRAVELING FOR TOURISM RESIDE IN A TRANSITORY RIVER JOURNEY FOR A MINIMUM OF 3 TO 5 DAYS FROM BELEM TO MANAUS AND BACK. IN ORDER TO HARMONIZE BETWEEN THE BEAUTY, ENJOYMENT AND CONNECTION WITH NATURE, WE ARE DESIGNING FERRY TERMINALS THAT SERVE TOURISTS AND CIVILIANS WHILE ALSO ENRICHING THE LANDSCAPE THROUGH BIOMMIMICRY OF THE BRAZILIAN NUT. DOING SO WOULD ULTIMATELY CREATE COMFORT BETWEEN BOTH HUMAN HABITATION AND SERVE THE NATURAL ECOLOGICAL BIODIVERSITY OF THE LAND SIMULTANEOUSLY.
Paola Cabello
April 25, 2023
Honorable Mention
Honorable Mention
Beirut Horizontal Landscraper
Beirut port explosion sets an opportunity to rebuild the site as a new waterfront district & port city, hence we seek to exploit the full potential of the waterfront in the impending future. We envision creating a new waterfront district with a shoal and open bay surrounded by a horizontal living city. Horizontal Landscraper aims to create a horizontal living city that serves as a backbone and beacon to the city, synergizing the city and the new waterfront district.
Zhi Hoe Kong
March 26, 2023
Honorable Mention
Honorable Mention
Building Hope: The Forgotten People of Gaza
Since 2007, the Gaza Strip, an occupied Palestinian territory, has been under an Israeli and Egyptian siege. Terrestrial and nautical blockades, in addition to incessant militaristic onslaughts by the Israeli Defence Forces have had devastating impacts on the Gazan people, infrastructure and ecology. The resulting destruction, resource scarcities, utility and service deficiencies have produced an urgency for intervention. This work illuminates opportunities for design to be utilized as an agent of empowerment, amelioration, and hope. In an effort to interrupt compounding systems of oppression, an exploration of novel hydro-electric and ecological pavilions of refuge are proposed as speculative models of stable utilities and service provisions. Situated among ongoing UNDP rehabilitation efforts in Gaza's main socio-cultural and ecological spine, Wadi Gaza, these speculative models aim to provide sustenance, support and hope for the people of Gaza. Sustenance in Gaza is highly dependent on water and electricity, interconnected, as clean water is a scarcity highly impacted by the availability of electricity. My design addresses these scarcities through four components: buoys, terminals, transitory shelters, and spaces of play. Buoys harvest electricity, terminals harvest water and supply services to surrounding communities, while shelters and grow gardens provide livelihood support for Gazans. Spaces of play progress beyond sustenance to build hope for a better future The goal of this work is to bring about a sense of normalcy to Gazan lives though providing basic provisions and safeguards afforded to most around the world. The aim in designing these spaces of sustenance and support is to restore hope in the Gazan community. These spaces not only aid in ameliorating lacking infrastructure, ecology, and utility, but afford the predominately juvenile population an opportunity to experience their lives with less worry. Promoting recreation and play in a region bombarded with military occupation can bring about a sense of normalcy, while integrated spaces of shelter and provision provide sustenance and support in trying times.
Sarah Fahmy
May 1, 2023
Honorable Mention
Intentions for São Paulo: Minhocão rehearsal
Through a suggested route, “Intentos por São Paulo: Ensaio Minhocão” provokes all of us, subjects who use, consume and produce the urban, to reflect on the relevance of experiences, perception and spatial apprehension of the city in everyday life. The proposal takes shape by connecting four “intentos” (interventions) along the path of the viaduct Elevado Pres. João Goulart (Minhocão), in the city center of São Paulo. Each attempt seeks to sensitize individuals by sharpening the senses of those who connect physically and visually in these spaces. The aim is to remove individuals from the state of anesthesia in the real world caused by the hypervaluation of the virtual world, using, as an artifice, human physical experiences such as sitting, feeling, smelling, living. To this end, we work with the idea of decompressing passers-by in spaces that allow them to pause and perceive the dynamics around them. Each project is carried out in a unique way and adapted to its context, emphasizing the urban layer of communication and culture through shock, mixture and experiences. That is, it generates identity and belonging through the unique memories created between the individual, the collective and the urban space. “These spatial experiences are open ended, they form a network of overlapping perspectives.” Steven Holl.
Julia Getschko
May 2, 2023
Honorable Mention
School of the Arts
A new fine arts school is under construction in a suburban town. The center will feature a theater for performances by the local high school theater department, as well as a smaller theater for local independent theater companies. The building will be designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible, using rainwater harvesting and solar panels to generate electricity.
Aisha Oloriegbe
March 6, 2023
Honorable Mention
The Machine - A Walk in the City
In a time of crisis or war, one is constantly thinking about the future consequences just as much as he is thinking about the present. We always question , when will it end? And what will change in us (our needs), as the people who experienced the crisis? Architecture is an essential element in such situations where it constantly needs to serve the needs of the society. Inspired from the quarantine we lived in 2020 due to the Covid19 Pandemic, and starting from a precedent, children’s home for the future by “Cebra”, a machine was create. The main idea behind the orphanage is to make the kids feel at home, rather than in an institution, to feel connected, through the continuous interior circulation. This inspired the machine, which is an orphanage built post crisis (post-war) for children to cope, heal through music, and connect again to each other mentally, visually, and physically. The organizational system of the units allowed the continuous circulation between all the 8 units on each floor where there’s also a recurring shift between interior and exterior spaces to reach the other units. Simultaneously creating a central space that is visible and easily accessible from all the units, and therefore both creating A walk in the City.
Elvana Mohamad
April 17, 2023
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