Healing – Alternative Designs for Quarantine Cities: Meet the Winners and Hounourable Mentions!
WINNER: Anti-sharing Terminal
by Roman Tay Yao Yee
Recently graduated as a Bachelor of Architecture student at RMIT University, Melbourne. Roman enjoys exploring untapped narrative, exactly as the competitions by Non Architecture which brings the unconventional designs to the field of architecture. In addition, most of the Non Architecture Competitions have nearly no limits on any requirement that strongly widen my perspective to be innovative as much as we can. I’m looking forward to more interesting topic competitions by Non Architecture.
WINNER: RADIANCE
by Kristijan Dapčević and Savo Radović
“We are young architects from Montenegro passionately venturing through the world of architecture, design and visualization! Engaging in competitions and using architectural online platforms is a great opportunity for us to get in touch with people that share similar interests, and build a network of inspiring artists and visionaries.
Since our first interaction with Non Architecture platform, we have been closely following every competition that has been announced. As young artists, we find Non Architecture competitions perfect for exploring ideas, graphics styles and finding the best ways to express ourselves and turn our vision into a visual story. Furthermore, in time the competitions got more complex, which only allowed us to constantly push our limits and discover new approaches to architecture and graphic design. With that said, we are looking forward to taking part in more Non Architecture competitions to come.”
HONOURABLE MENTION: Apodcalypse
by Raphael Hugh Chang Jia Yi and Heng Si Ying Joy
Raphael and Joy are your typical undergraduates who can’t stop raving about architecture. These two friends are always seen around campus engaging in projects and talking about anything and everything related to the city. As Urban Studies majors, they are regulars in the realm of coffee consumption and are familiar with the nervous breakdowns that occur when submission deadlines near. After classes, you can find Raphael out on a run or engaging in social work in the vicinity. Meanwhile, you can find Joy in the fabrication and wood-working studios or chilling out on her beanbag with a good book in hand.
With the COVID-19 pandemic and the cancellation of university summer programmes worldwide, Raphael and Joy turned to online platforms such as Non-Architecture Competitions to find new opportunities to learn about the evolution of cities in times of crises. Participating in their very first design competition, HEALING was a challenging yet exciting experience for them. Discussions and design work were done entirely over Zoom and Skype, which were at times frustrating. Nevertheless, participating in the competition was an insightful and meaningful experience, one which they thought they would miss out on during a lockdown summer.
HONOURABLE MENTION: Beirut Bits’n Prints
by Omar Karout and Fatima Ayesh
“As covid-19 hit the world, it triggered our minds with the ways our day-to-day life would change, sooner or later. Every now and then we would have a discussion with our colleagues in architecture school about how this pandemic would permanently change the way architects design from today onward. We saw great potential in the Healing competition and wanted to exploit this chance to design for quarantine cities. As we were brainstorming to get an idea not so typical of the epidemic we’re living, one of the most powerful explosions in history hit Beirut. 300,000 people living an economic crisis and fighting a pandemic were now homeless. What better architecture to create than pre-fab and portable? Beirut bits and wreckage transform into 3d-printed microneighborhoods.”
HONOURABLE MENTION: BEYOND YOUR 4 WALLS
by Marcin Zebrowski, Dominika Misterka, Emeline Lex, Teresa Arana Aristi and Tony Nielsen
“We are Urban10, a collective of young professionals specializing in urban design & architecture. We met during our master studies in Sustainable Urban Design at Lund University in Sweden and have been friends and colleagues since. We have a variety of backgrounds in architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture and bring this interdisciplinary approach into our projects. We are currently based in Scandinavia but work on projects across the world.
Although we typically work in more traditional urban design competitions and projects, Healing as part of Non Architecture Competitions allowed us to explore new ways to communicate our ideas in more conceptual and unconventional ways. The concept phase was a nice challenge for us as the Healing topic had so many different dimensions and directions to take, we were happy to eventually land on a topic that we found both fascinating and challenging. It was an opportunity for us to “step outside the box” and produce something a bit different and at a different scale to what we are typically used to doing. Being selected for the honourable mention means a lot to us and shows us that we are able to successfully visualize our thoughts and ideas in new ways.”
HONOURABLE MENTION: Healing Pods + context in movement
by Elia Mingrone and Peter Schmidt
Elia Mingrone
Founding partner of DIEfabrik and scientific staff member at the faculty of architecture, Jade Hochschule, Oldenburg – Germany
Employed architect in Rome, Italy at il pedone
Diploma in Architecture at TU Braunschweig, Germany
Peter Schmidt
Employed architect in Oldenburg, Germany at DIEfabrik,
before at Knerer und Lang, Dresden – Germany and
Pahl – Weber-Pahl Architekten, Darmstadt – Germany
Diploma in Architecture at Hochschule Darmstadt
We worked together at DIEfabrik on the competition and it was really fun to do so.
HONOURABLE MENTION: Soft City
by Alberto de Salvatierra and Dan Hapton
Alberto de Salvatierra (pictured right) is Founder and Director of the Center for Civilization and Assistant Professor of Urbanism and Data in Architecture at the University of Calgary School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. He is also Founding Principal of PROXIIMA and a Global Shaper at the Calgary Hub of the Global Shapers Community—an initiative by the World Economic Forum based in Geneva, Switzerland. Dan Hapton (pictured left) is a Research Associate at the Center for Civilization and a Sessional Instructor at the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape where he teaches foundational software courses and design studios. He is also Founding Principal of Aitch—a boutique design practise based in Calgary that specializes in the creative revitalization of existing buildings. Together, they collaborate on a number of research projects under the aegis of the Center for Civilization, a design research lab and international think tank working at the intersection of cities, society, and civilization.
Thoughts on the competition: “The myriad of crises exacerbated by the pandemic have made it crucial to rethink existing urban design paradigms. This transitional period of uncertainty is therefore a unique opportunity to reexamine relationships and move more confidently into progressive, radical and equitable city-making. Participating in this competition was a great way to projectively speculate on how certain technologies could be deployed to co-opt the carbon artefacts that have made our cities contributors to climate change, and flip the script towards a more ecologically-centred mode of living.”
Instagram tags: @aedesalvatierra @dan_hapton @centerforcivilization @ucalgarysapl @_proxiima
HONOURABLE MENTION: Urban Working Stations
by Amnon Direktor
Amnon Direktor is an architect, journalist and urban researcher originally from Tel Aviv, now living in Brussels. He graduated in architecture from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. These days he is starting another master’s degree in urban studies at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium.
He started as an intern in the Parisian architectural office Chartier-Dalix. During his fifth year, he worked on urban design projects in various cities in Israel for the Moria-Sekely landscape architecture office in Tel Aviv, and since graduation he has been working at Bar Orian Architects – one of the largest and most significant offices in Tel Aviv.
In addition to working as an architect, Amnon has been writing regularly in a number of magazines and journals in Israel on topics about architecture, urbanism and city life. He has curated a number of exhibitions related to the world of architecture and urbanism.
“This is the second time I’m participating in Non Architecture Competition, the first time was in 2018 in the “learning” competition. For me, competition like this, it’s my place to be creative and do things that are impossible on a daily basis and in professional practice. One of the reasons I am drawn to this competition is the very fact that there is no set format, no rules and in fact anything can be done. And in my opinion, competitions of this kind are very important – an interdisciplinary platform open to everyone. It makes me want to step out of my comfort zone, imagine the future, and put on paper innovative ideas that raise many questions about life in the city. In this competition, it was clear to me that the project would relate to COVID-19, and think of an idea that addresses the question of how to design healthier cities. I believe that in today’s world it is very important to imagine and think about the future of cities.”
