Foreword

The competition for a Melbourne Tattoo Academy recollects and postulates principles of architectural humanism in contemporary culture. The project arises from a practice historically and perhaps more traditionally associated with transgression, defiance, and opposition. While it may seem counterintuitive, the competition compels disciplinary introspection into spatial and material issues concerning culture, society, and individuality. The tattoo as a personal or cultural artifact is generally absent from architectural consideration — one might think of Loos and his seminal writings during the turn of the last century condemning modern practices of architectural ornament as barbaric: in comparison to Papuan society, “the modern man who tattoos himself is a criminal or a degenerate” (Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime). Submissions to the Melbourne Tattoo Academy reframe this critique, and the cultural comparison between the artifact of the tattoo and building practice in relation to contemporary liberal society and the late post modern condition.

Successful entries to the competition engage in this consideration, challenging personal and social conceptions of the tattoo as art form and its cultural, philosophical implication in architecture. Selected projects demonstrate a plurality of positions describing a variety of trajectories. Notable among the relationships and juxtapositions established include: critiques on permanence and longevity; the irreversible transformation of flesh and nature; correlation between graphic and retinal expression, graffiti and street art, the scenographic and decorated shed; lastly, body art as boutique parlor fashion, and high couture. Perhaps most interesting is the evolution of value and meaning of relatively archaic human practices, both tattoo and building arts as cultural artifacts, from the Papuan, modern, and late post modern societies.

Competition results in media publications

COMPETITION ORGANISERS
Melbourne 
Tattoo 
Academy

1st Prize Winner +
BB STUDENT AWARD

Project name

Melbourne Tattoo Academy

An architecture vision competition make us go to the essence of an idea, we have to translate it as directly as we can. It can also provoque a dialog without imposing a constructed reality. A building must not be only one man’s or team’s work, but the result of a long process which includes differents actors. A competition is only the first step.

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Authors Matthieu Friedli, Agathe Sautet, Clara Berthaud,
Country Switzerland
+158 points Buildner University Rankings

2nd Prize Winner

Project name

The Tower and the Lair of Tattoo

Participate in architecture vision competitions seems to me to be a good way to practice architecture, its spatialities and its concepts without too many constraints related to the architect profession.

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Authors Morgan Baufils, , ,
Country France

3rd Prize Winner

Project name

Tattoo City

Authors Alexandru Tintea, Arturo Garrido, ,
Country Spain
+52 points Buildner University Rankings

BB GREEN AWARD

Project name

Stories of Narrators

Authors Tik Bun Ben Tseng, , ,
Country Hong Kong

Honorable Mentions

Show Honorables Mentions (6 of 6) Hide Honorables Mentions projects
Project name

Tattoosphere - Ink under the skin...

Authors Jean-Baptiste Ceran, Marie Tesson, ,
Country France
Project name

Dot Worx:MTA

Country United States
Project name

The Melbourne Exchange

Authors Tom Robinson, Anastase Paraskevopoulos, Philip Tridente, Samee Sultani,
Country Australia
Project name

Street Stain

Authors Benjamin Chi, Chenzi Yu, , , ,
Country Australia
Project name

Tattooing

Authors Janejira Hu, Sira Temjai, , , ,
Country Thailand
+52 points Buildner University Rankings
Project name

Tattoo X Trees = Artificial X Nature

Authors Nathalie Eldan, Bettyna Zadeh, , , ,
Country France