Buildner Architects' Sugar

Architectural
Visualization Award

Edition #1

Results

Foreword

Competition organisers

Buildner is pleased to announce the results of its first annual Architect’s Sugar Architectural Visualization Award!

The Award series seeks outstanding architectural visualizations of all kinds. It is one of the Buildner’s ‘silent competitions’, in which participants must communicate without the use of any text, and solely through the use of visuals.

Visualizations are critically important to the industry, the primary communications tool for architects and designers to express creativity, design intent and aspirations. Visualizations are limitless in their scope, and can be used to describe details, spaces, buildings, systems, and even entire cities.

The way architectural visualizations are created has changed dramatically over the years, but regardless of the technology or technique, creative thinking has always been fundamental to developing innovative drawings.

The Architect's Sugar Architectural Visualization Award is the first competition in a series in which Buildner is calling for submissions from architects and enthusiasts to share some of their favorite work. Buildner’s network of architects and designers are some of the most talented in the world, and the Architectural Visualization Award is a chance to highlight the best of the best.

Buildner worked with an outstanding international jury to evaluate and award the received submissions: Jan Clostermann is the Founding Director of CLOU architects in Beijing, China; Xuanru Chen is a lead architect at Shanghai-based ZJJZ Atelier; Andrea Hansen-Phillips is the principal of Datum Digital Studio, founder of the online journal Atlas of Visualization, and Adjunct Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture at the University of Tennessee; Michael Meredith is Associate Dean and Professor at Princeton University and a principal of MOS, an internationally recognized architecture practice based in New York; Stephen Pimbley is a British architect based in Singapore and is the founding director of SPARK Architects; Fabien Roy is a swiss designer, architect, and founder of Fabien Roy Studio; and James Whitaker is founder of London-based Whitaker Studio.

Buildner and its jury panel thank each of the participants and teams that submitted their work.

1st Prize Winner

Project name

Distant Past

Authors

Adrian Vindedal

Norway

Why do you enter architecture
competitions?

I participate in architecture competitions because it can give a work direction, focus and a set time frame. I find this gives me a space and an arena to bring forward ideas that otherwise might continue to float around without ever reaching their full potential.

Read full interview

Fabien Roy / Buildner guest jury Fabien Roy Studio Switzerland

The illustration has a strong character that expresses a specific context of the site and the proposed architecture. The legibility of the project is clear. One can imagine the function of these buildings even if they do not belong to any classical architectural language.

Stephen Pimbley / Buildner guest jury British architect based in Singapore and is the founding director of SPARK Architects Singapore

The image captures a sense of impending climate doom with dust blowing and the stark desolation of abandoned land save for what seems to be two elevated dwellings. Devastating consequences for the community who have faced drought and wind erosion that is very redolent in an image that spans across an unobstructed plain. Solemn but beautiful.

Xuanru Chen / Buildner guest jury architect at ZJJZ Atelier China

The visualization includes two buildings with strange windows and structures, of unknown function, situated at an unknown location. However when I examine closely the detailed pipes and textures and how well they fit into the surroundings, I am made to believe that these are real. The conflict between the strangeness and the realistic-ness is fascinating.

James Whitaker / Buildner guest jury Founder of Whitaker Studio United Kingdom

Everything about this image is wonderful - the composition, tones, ambiguity.

Inspired? Enter an open architetcure competition now!

2nd Prize Winner

Project name

Melbourne Protest Art Institute: Make Art Not War

Authors

Kelly Chun Wai Choi

Rebecca Andre

University

The university of melbourne

+92 points Buildner University Rankings!

Australia

Michael Meredith / Buildner guest jury Princeton University, MOS USA

An innovative collapsing of plans and sections into a spatial field.

Andrea Hansen-Phillips / Buildner guest jury Datum Digital Studio USA

A consistent use of color, level of detail, and an interesting projection. It's a bit difficult to discern architectural structures and make sense of the different projections, but I could spend all day zooming in on this drawing and discovering new details.

Jan Clostermann / Buildner guest jury Founding Director of CLOU architects China

A fascinating amalgamation of perspectives, axonometries, elevations, plans and sections into one kaleidoscopic scroll. Reminiscent of Chinese multidimensional landscape scrolls, this illustration is captivating in its social narrative.

Xuanru Chen / Buildner guest jury architect at ZJJZ Atelier China

This visualization is readable as an eloquent and imaginative story. The delicate mixture of plans, sections and perspectives creates a collage of various scenes, which are connected by a railroad with maps and notes pinned along the way. The massive details form a journey of time and space, and keep the audience reading into it.

3rd Prize Winner

Project name

Back me to the Earth

Authors

Xian Zhu

Xi Luo

University

Darmstadt university of applied sciences (hochschule darmstadt)

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!

Germany

Why do you enter architecture
competitions?

Some of competitions that are different from traditional architecture, especially interaction design and interdisciplinary art. These give us more creative possibilities and space to explore.

Read full interview

James Whitaker / Buildner guest jury Founder of Whitaker Studio United Kingdom

This image conveys a mood and spirit of the place while keeping an ambiguity about the details.

Fabien Roy / Buildner guest jury Fabien Roy Studio Switzerland

This illustration, created using a manual technique (real painting?) or generated by post-processing, generates a fantastic atmosphere. The futuristic and/or spatial context is clear. The message is well conveyed.

Stephen Pimbley / Buildner guest jury British architect based in Singapore and is the founding director of SPARK Architects Singapore

2022 was the breakthrough year for AI-driven image creation, better than ever in quality so impossible to tell if this image is AI or created by hand. I was drawn to this image because of its Syd Mead Blade Runner aesthetic. The elevated dwellings perched amongst beautifully coloured autumnal Japanese Oak like foliage. Your eye is drawn into the distance to the yellow moon and more buildings.

Xuanru Chen / Buildner guest jury architect at ZJJZ Atelier China

It is an image that makes viewers wonder: When were those structures built and whom were they built for? Were they still occupied by humans since only cats and birds were easily recognized? If not, what happened? The beautiful and artistic visualization prolong the viewer’s wonder, and finally they are lost in thoughts.