Introduction
The Amber Road Trekking Cabin competition calls into question the periodic, historic challenge of the situated object: contextualizing an architectural artifact in the pastoral landscape. Along vast topographies of the Latvian Baltic coast, the project seeks a low impact, transient and inhabitable infrastructure in support of an anticipated hiking network transecting the various landscapes definitive of the region: pine forests, dunes, and white sand beaches. Successful projects respond to programmatic requirements of the brief with consideration of economic viability, securable enclosure, utilitarian function, constructibility, and climatic sensitivity. Evoking disciplinary antecedents, including lineages of the primitive — architectural speculations of Perrault and Laugier; the ideality of Eden, the pictorial and the picturesque — proposals consider modalities of contingency and circumstance demonstrated through exploration of typology, cultural gestalt, and monumentality. Successful projects evidence an awareness and invention of materiality, siting, programming, and negotiation of public and private relationship. The competition collectively provokes reflection of ecological conservation and its prescience in contemporary cultural and social practice, serving as an economic alternative to the commercialized, industrialized landscape definitive of global capital interests.
1st Prize Winner
Link - A sustainable connection between the forest and the ocean.
For nearly two decades, White has invested in establishing a unique, research-based organisation of highly qualified experts in the field of sustainable architecture and design. Our founder’s aim was to improve society through architecture, and his legacy lives on in our ambition to contribute towards the building of a sustainable world.
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Denmark
Jury feedback summary
The first place project LINK for the Amber Road Trekking Cabins was chosen for its strength as both an architectural and landscape proposal. The project introduces a series of wooden moles, structural piers used as breakwaters, to connect the coast to the interior terrains of the Latvian landscape.
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2nd Prize Winner +
BB STUDENT AWARD
BB STUDENT AWARD
Human Atrium
Vision competitions bring us to simple, yet strong ideas. This particular one provoked us to answer questions such as: what is a shelter nowadays? What is the minimal area for living? What does it mean to share a space with others?
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Jury feedback summary
The success of the second place proposal lies in its ability to simultaneously delineate the privacy of the individual and promote a collective ethos within a very compact footprint. On the interior, the organization of notched and stacked raw timber walls pinwheel to alternately generate nooks for sleeping and desks for contemplating the landscape. These private spaces surround an open central area for communal cooking, eating, and conversing.
3rd Prize Winner
Amber Road Trekking Cabin
First and foremost, architectural competitions are fun, and they provide a great opportunity to explore new ideas and perfect presentation ideas.
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Australia
Jury feedback summary
The strength of the third place project manifests in it’s ambition to develop an infrastructural landscape typology, comparable to the windmill, grain silo, or lighthouse, as an icon of the Latvian coast. Constructed at the edge of the forest or along the waterfront, the trekking cabin takes advantage of the predominantly horizontal datum of the landscape and its affiliation with the distant horizon creating a vertical marker for travelers passing by.
BB GREEN AWARD
Amber Trek
We are interested in public opinion - we see it as an exchange, competition and a challenge. We are always open for discussion and are ready to share our vision and experience with others.
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Russian Federation
Honorable mentions
Shortlisted projects
Hearth and Haven
United States Haystack
ESSENCE
Embers
A DIALOGUE AMIDST A COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE
Project ID 9790
Project ID 9746
Amber Trek
CSÁKÓ
AMBER CABIN
DROP DOWN CABIN
BUNKER
PLUG-IN CABINS
Human Atrium
Sakotne
Project ID 9637
Primitive Future
A prevailing harmony
Project ID 9430
Link - A sustainable connection between the forest and the ocean.
Vidū - in between
Project ID 9126
Amber Road Trekking Cabin
Saudade
un(a)like
Project ID 9020
Project ID 9014
TEL(N)T
Cuboid
Project ID 8799
eMBER CABINS
Project ID 8480
Project ID 8479
The Lantern Project ID 8407
Project ID 8406
Hamlet
ART Cabins
Fragments of The Amber Palace
Latvian Lookout
wooden fan
HUSK
Amber Cave Project ID 8298
CAB3IN1
Project ID 8051 - Nota Elementis
