Buildner's Unbuilt Award 2025 competition Honorable mention winners - Daniel Beyene, Biniyam Bewketu Teshome and Frezer Tesema

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce the Honorable Mention winners of Buildner's Unbuilt Award 2025 competition – Daniel Beyene, Biniyam Bewketu Teshome  and Frezer Tesema from Ethiopia!

Daniel Beyene, Biniyam Bewketu Teshome  and Frezer Tesema

Please tell us about your company (when it was founded, where it is based, how many employees, etc) Alternatively, if you do not have a company, please give us some insights on your own professional/academia background.

We come from a shared academic and professional background, having first met while studying at Addis Ababa University. After graduation, we continued to work together in the same architecture/design studio, where we developed a strong collaborative relationship and a shared design language. Through this experience, we recognized the potential for a meaningful and productive partnership. Our decision to work together independently emerged naturally from this trajectory. We are deeply passionate about design and see it as both a critical and creative practice. Forming a partnership allows us to develop work that reflects our own voice, values, and curiosity, and to engage with architecture and design in ways that are thoughtful, context-responsive, and socially relevant. We are motivated by the desire for our work and our ideas to be heard and to contribute meaningfully to the built environment.

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance, what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where the company/ individuals have been Involved?

We have been involved in a range of architectural and design projects at different scales, both individually and collaboratively. As individuals and as a pair, we have participated in several national and international design competitions, gaining experience in concept-driven, time-sensitive, and research-based design processes. To date, we have collectively been involved in more than five international competitions. While this is our first project as a trio, our collaboration is built on a solid foundation of prior teamwork. In the professional studio where we previously worked together, we were involved in both small-scale projects (such as interiors, installations, and compact buildings) and large-scale projects (including mixed-use, institutional, and urban-scale developments). This exposure allowed us to understand different levels of complexity, coordination, and responsibility across project scales. Overall, our experience spans conceptual design, competition work, and built-project development, with a strong interest in translating ideas across scales while maintaining clarity of concept and design intent.

What does architecture mean to you and what is the role of an architect in your society?

For us, architecture is a tool, a form of activism. In contexts like ours, it’s not just about buildings; it’s about healing, rebuilding, and enabling communities. The architect’s role goes beyond design; it’s about listening, adapting, and finding spatial answers to social challenges.

Why do you participate in architecture competitions?

Competitions have been a gateway for us. They offer a space to explore bold ideas without the limitations of conventional practice. For young studios like ours, they provide a platform that allows us to grow, test ideas, and gain global visibility while remaining grounded in local issues.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture competitions?

Start. Even if you feel unprepared. Competitions teach you more than design; they teach resilience, storytelling, and collaboration. It’s not just about winning; it’s about sharpening your ideas and pushing your practice forward. They’ve helped us shape our identity and gain the confidence to build a studio around our values.