Architecture Competition Sansusī Forest Food Court Student prize winners – University of California

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the Student prize winners of our "Sansusī Forest Food Court" competition – Binghao Yao, Qingdong Hu, Yanguang Zhu and Zhiyan Xu from United States!

Buildner Student Award winners from United States

We are a team of architecture graduates from UC Berkeley, having completed our studies in May this year. Our shared passion for timber construction, discovered during a specialized timber-focused class, brought us together and laid the foundation for our collaborative journey.

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?

As four Berkeley students, we appreciate each other’s unique personalities and diverse interests that enriched our collaboration process. We consistently stimulated intriguing discussions and collectively merged and evolved our ideas. This dynamic collaboration is what led us to conceive such an interesting design. This competition was our first collaboration project, but all of us had been working on projects of various scales, functionalities, and construction types. We are all devoted to exploring new techniques and design ideas through our academic years and getting ready for future challenges.

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

Architecture nowadays means much more than just shelters. Physically, it establishes a symbiotic integration of people, nature, and technology. Spiritually, it serves as a container of emotion that celebrates the historical legacy and memorial moments. For us, architecture is a complex yet fascinating guidebook encouraging us to actively explore the value of our lives.

Architects can barely change society, but they can make tangible contributions to solving intractable problems we are facing, particularly in climate change, healthcare, and digitization. The role of an architect nowadays is more like an activist who can push the world to develop into a better place.

Why do you participate in architecture competitions?

Through gaining experience and building our portfolio, we cultivate self-motivation in our shared field of interest, potentially preparing ourselves to venture into our own business. Architecture competitions balance the conceptual image with the realization of construction, helping us maintain the necessary design sensitivity and stimulate our creativity.

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

Thinking is not enough, it takes courage(to start) and pain (to be persistent) to take action and make a difference.