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Introduction
Buildner is pleased to announce the results of the inaugural edition of The Architect’s Stair competition. This international design competition invited architects and designers to revisit one of architecture’s most enduring and evocative elements—the stair. More than a means of vertical circulation, it was framed as a vessel for narrative and emotion, an opportunity to explore procession, rhythm, and the sculptural potential of space.
In this second edition, participants were challenged to envision a stair not as a technical device but as a manifestation of architectural thought and imagination. Free from any restrictions of site, scale, material, or function, designers were encouraged to express their personal values and philosophies through a single, elemental gesture—redefining the stair as a work of art, a spatial journey, or a conceptual statement.
Buildner and the competition jury thank all who took part in this challenge. Congratulations to the winners and honorable mentions whose entries exemplified creativity and depth. We look forward to continuing this exploration in future editions of The Architect’s Stair.
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Take a step and make a statement!
1st Prize Winner +
Buildner Student Award
Buildner Student Award
Playstair: Push and Pull Staircase
We see competitions as opportunities to challenge ourselves and test new ideas. They allow us to think freely, explore possibilities, and learn through the process of design. Participating helps us reflect on what architecture can be, and how we, as young designers, can contribute to the ongoing conversation.
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Jury feedback summary
Playstair reimagines the conventional staircase as a playful, interactive terrain that transforms movement into an opportunity for creativity and connection. Built around a static timber frame, the design integrates a dynamic field of blue foam cubes that can be manually pushed or pulled to create new configurations—steps, seats, benches, storage, or voids.
A really enjoyable, playful and highly imaginative response to the design brief. The ability to morph the structure through push and pull provides interest and clever articulation of elements. High levels of detailing and thought have been applied to what is a very simple concept.
Sam Brown / Buildner guest jury
O’DonnellBrown, Scotland
I appreciate the project’s courage to break from the traditional notion of the stair as a fixed, sculptural object. Through a playful choreography of push and pull, the stair becomes more than a passage—it becomes a stage for gathering, a landscape of encounters, and a celebration of movement itself. The idea is joyful and evocative, presented with clarity and grace through clean, well-composed graphics.
Yujin Cao / Buildner guest jury
Bruner/Cott Architects, United States
The project occupies a space between playground and public realm, inviting both children and adults to engage with it in different ways. Its open-ended character encourages interaction and play, while hinting at the possibility of being developed further through the incorporation of reused materials, adding another layer of meaning and sustainability.
Lera Samovich / Buildner guest jury
Fala Atelier, Portugal
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
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Playstair offers a compelling and inventive visual presentation that matches the project’s playful intent. The photographic rendering is vibrant and atmospheric, clearly communicating the project’s scale, material logic, and interaction potential. The exploded diagrams showing the push/pull functionality are both instructive and engaging, capturing the modular system’s spatial logic with simplicity and clarity.
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10/10 Linework
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9/10 Quality of drawings
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8/10 Balance of color
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9/10 Layout
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7/10 Hierarchy
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8/10 Annotation
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9/10 Text
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9/10 Clarity of story
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8/10 Clarity of diagrams
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9/10 Quality of overall presentation
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2nd Prize Winner
Lamarr
We view architecture competitions as a valuable playground. They offer a distinct opportunity to dive deep into a specific topic, test new tools and methodologies, and further develop our projects outside of standard academic constraints. Crucially, they allow us to address real world problems that align with our professional interests, but which might otherwise be beyond the scope of our student studio work.
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Jury feedback summary
Lamarr reimagines the staircase as an urban spine—a continuous, coiling ramp that threads through a multi-level public building, transforming vertical circulation into an experiential journey. The design takes inspiration from the historical context of its dense urban site, once home to a 19th-century market hall, by recasting movement as a civic and social act.
The project embraces a productive ambiguity: it can stand as an autonomous structure—almost like a public space in itself, whether indoors or outdoors—yet it can equally become an integral part of a larger building. This dual potential allows it to adapt fluidly to different contexts and scales.
Lera Samovich / Buildner guest jury
Fala Atelier, Portugal
This project epitomises how a simple but powerful concept can be designed with deep levels of consideration and complexity. It also holds deeper meaning for the ongoing challenges of potential reuse and retrofit of existing structures on the high street. The design's conceptual strength is enjoyably grounded in its very real offering of imaginative retrofit .
Sam Brown / Buildner guest jury
O’DonnellBrown, Scotland
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
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Lamarr demonstrates exceptional graphic coherence and analytical depth, presenting a conceptually ambitious idea through a clear, multi-layered visual language. The unwrapped plan of the ramp is a particularly effective narrative device, allowing the viewer to grasp spatial continuity and programmatic distribution in a single glance. Technical plans and sections are meticulously drawn, maintaining legibility despite the project’s complexity.
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9/10 Linework
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9/10 Quality of drawings
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8/10 Balance of color
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9/10 Layout
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8/10 Hierarchy
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9/10 Annotation
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9/10 Text
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9/10 Clarity of story
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9/10 Clarity of diagrams
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9/10 Quality of overall presentation
3rd Prize Winner
Up set Down
Netherlands
Jury feedback summary
Up Set Down is a bold adaptive reuse and vertical circulation intervention for the Laurenskerk Tower in Rotterdam. Rooted in a historical and urban analysis of the site, the project reimagines the tower not as a static monument but as a dynamic vertical gallery—an observatory that reconnects the public to the layered past and future of the city.
A pragmatic and believable proposition engaging healthily with a real site and place. The contemporary take on a deeply historical building is particularly enjoyed. The spiral stair, emerging from the roof would provide a spectacular spatial experience whilst conceptually being grounded in symbolism and meaning.
Sam Brown / Buildner guest jury
O’DonnellBrown, Scotland
An interesting take on the subject, but the structure appears overly complicated and could be revisited and sharpened to clarify its intentions.
Lera Samovich / Buildner guest jury
Fala Atelier, Portugal
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
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8/10 Linework
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9/10 Quality of drawings
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7/10 Balance of color
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8/10 Layout
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6/10 Hierarchy
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6/10 Annotation
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6/10 Text
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7/10 Clarity of story
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8/10 Clarity of diagrams
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8/10 Quality of overall presentation
Honorable mentions
Shortlisted projects
Tower Of Duality
Germany The Observer
After Macbeth
MobiuStairs
Ascend Through The Soil
When is a stair, not a stair?
IL PUNTO DI VISTA
Passed_welling
The way of village becomes stairs
Lamarr
From Line to Plane
Look Both Ways Before Crossing
Shared Balance
Stairs Of Relationship
The Basalt Sunflower
Persephone stairs
Up set Down
STAIR-WELL
Stairacotta
Earth Viewer
Playstair: Push and Pull Staircase
A STAIR TO THE SKY
SP(L)INE
108 steps
TRACES OF BEING
WEIGHT OF STEPS
AEROSTRATA
The submission is visually rich, conceptually compelling, and technically robust. The exploded axonometric stands out as a high point—layered and well-labeled—communicating structural complexity and programmatic clarity. Read more The rendered perspectives are atmospheric and polished, conveying material texture, lighting, and spatial drama effectively, especially around the central spiral stair. However, the overall legibility of the board suffers due to the lack of visual hierarchy. The dense grayscale text blocks, uniform in tone and weight, are difficult to read and visually overwhelming in certain sections. A clearer typographic system—using bold titles, callouts, or overlays—would greatly improve narrative pacing and help guide the viewer through the project's story. While the design ambition is clearly high, the graphic communication would benefit from better spatial breathing room and visual contrast to support the strength of the concept.