Foreword

The Sleeping Pods on a Cliff competition is the third collaboration between Bee Breeders and the Vale de Moses Yoga Retreat – a site located in the remote pine and eucalyptus forests of central Portugal, and a destination for hundreds of international guests each year. Like the previous competitions for the Vale de Moses Meditation Cabins and Yoga House on a Cliff, this event was a great success, drawing high-quality submissions from designers around the world.

The current infrastructure of the retreat consists of four once-abandoned stone farmhouse cottages that are now repurposed. For the Sleeping Pods on a Cliff competition, participants were tasked with proposing design solutions for simple sleeping pods that could accommodate a couple of guests at a time. Each sleeping pod was to include a basic sleeping zone as well as washing facilities.

This competition is part of Bee Breeders’ small-scale design competition series, focused on explorations for sustainable, compact projects that relate intimately to the scale of the human body. This focus is based on the notion that even the smallest projects can contain big ideas for the practice of architecture. Several of the winning projects will be exhibited in future publications by ARCHHIVE Books, which questions What is Small-Scale Architecture?

Bee Breeders worked with a jury consisting of: Marta Frazão, Filipe Rodrigues and Inês Vicente, Partners at Atelier Data, a Lisbon-based office; Ricardo Gomes, partner of Portugal’s KWY.studio; Samuel Gonçalves, founder of architectural practice SUMMARY in Porto; Jake Heffington, an architect based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA: Mikhail Krymov, co-founder and CEO of Sleepbox; and Raulino Silva, an architect at the Escola Superior Artística do Porto, who runs an office in Vila do Conde, Raulino Silva Arquitecto Unipessoal Lda.

Bee Breeders and its jury would like to thank all participants for their time and contribution to this library of small-scale, sustainable design solutions.

COMPETITION ORGANISERS
Sleeping Pods 
on a Cliff
Official partner
Sleeping Pods 
on a Cliff

1st Prize Winner +
BB GREEN AWARD

Project name

DEW CATCHER

Architecture competitions are an opportunity to test and explore ideas that would otherwise likely remain in a drawer, never to be formed into something potentially useful. This way, competitions invite innovation.

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Country Netherlands

2nd Prize Winner

Project name

Berço do Vale

Architecture competitions can help to develop new ways of thinking and compare your work with other professionals. They also provide useful insights for the creative presentation of your project.

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Country Russian Federation

3rd Prize Winner

Project name

Bio-rig

We do competitions for a few reasons. Firstly, to expand our exposure to the built environment past our local context. International competitions especially allow us to test the local knowledge we have developed over the last 10 years and validate our ideas against external briefs. Secondly, doing competitions feels liberating. We are given the empowerment and platform to test out even the most eccentric ideas in an effort to obtain a design solution. The unhindered nature of the process also compliments our playful design philosophy.

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Authors Harsha Rajashekar, Christofer Cattell
Country Australia

BB STUDENT AWARD

Project name

Nature Amplifier

Transitioning from school to the real industry is challenging in that execution takes over the projects. While we are deeply immersed in the practical, we wish to maintain our keenness and acuity on conceptual design and design theories through participation in architecture competitions.

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Client Favorite

Project name

Sleeping Stone

We participate in architecture competitions because it is an opportunity to learn and experiment with new ideas. We enjoy how architecture’s creative process combines research and design to familiarize oneself with a different environment and culture. Since this competition took place during a time when travel was limited, this competition allowed our group to direct our creative energy into an expression that allowed for exploration of a new place, which further expanded our knowledge of the world.

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Authors Yanja Tumurbaatar, Sara Lolarga, Mini Cheon
Country Canada

Honorable Mentions

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Project name

LIGHT OF NATURE

Authors Ugo Felici Giunchi, Nathalie Esposito, Assia Cirillo
Country Germany
Project name

Thirty Steps

Authors Lukas Mühle, Victoria Konuk, Timm Traxler
Country Germany
Project name

Sleeping Veranda

Author Pietro Dardano
Country Italy
Project name

"AME " - A Meditation Escape

Project name

Casca

Project name

The Square

Authors Lucia Kalogjera, Maja Genc Kalogjera
Country Croatia

Shortlisted projects

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THE COCOONS

Neil Capangpangan

N. isaiah Capangpangan

United States

The touch of nature

Ieva Stripeikaitė

Agnė Šedytė

Indraja Černiauskaitė

Lithuania

Prism

Oskar gideon Lundqvist

Ulrik Brokvist

Vilhelm Anderson

Ludvig Jönsson

Chalmers University of Technology

+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Sweden

Wooden Bundle

Antonio Bettuelli

Andrea Barla

Emilia Amoretti

Italy

Sleeping Stone

Yanja Tumurbaatar

Sara Lolarga

Mini Cheon

Canada

Sleeping Veranda

Pietro Dardano

Italy

Sleeping Pods on a Cliff

Yonatan Buchhandler

Valerio Nelli

United Kingdom

The Shingle Pod

Iulia Iatagan

Diana mirela Banica

Liviu marian Ion

Romania

Four Poster

Jasmit Rangr

Zachary Whiteman

United States

THE TREE POSE

Jai Mexis

Loukas Oikonomakis

Mike Gkouliamakis

NICOSIA

Greece

BLOOM

Anthony Levy

STUDIO NOAN

France

The Lantern Tree

Lorenzo Bagagli

Federico Ghezzi

Gianluca Rosa

Italy

LIGHT OF NATURE

Ugo Felici Giunchi

Nathalie Esposito

Assia Cirillo

Germany

The Net

Mariusz Piwkowski

Jakub Ciszewski

Tomasz Klepek

Silesian University of Technology

+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Poland

Balancê

Virginia Pozzi

Alessandro Minotti

Konstantinos Venis

Diogo andré Gonçalves ferreira

Italy

Porto Seguro

Ioana Birgaoanu

Stefan De bever

Stefania Pojar

Anna Manka

de Bever Architecten

Netherlands

Casca

Pedro Henrique Figueiredo Magalhaes

Netherlands

Vrksasana

David Mayer

Czech Republic

a Human Sized Bird House

Bachir Benkirane

Megi Davitidze

Fadri Horber

Czech Republic

Vale de Moses Cork Home

Jose carlos Menasalvas gijon

Cristina Jimenez lima

Spain

SHIZUKA

Sven Wötzel

Elodie Kuentz

Germany

DEW CATCHER

Marco Moretto

Maciej Abramczyk

Netherlands

Pasithea Cabin

Hao Wang

Hansen Sentosa

United States

Nature Amplifier

Xinwei Chen

Maple Lin

University of California, Berkeley

+74 points Buildner University Rankings!
United States

Thirty Steps

Lukas Mühle

Victoria Konuk

Timm Traxler

Germany

THE CYGNUS

Ioannis Katsiavos

National Technical University of Athens - School of Architecture

+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Greece

Bio-rig

Harsha Rajashekar

Christofer Cattell

Australia

Berço do Vale

Evgenii Varlygin

Anastasiia Soshnikova

Russian Federation

Corpo Mente Alma

Sizhe Chen

David Bell

Jesus Sanchez

Isabelle Ndoumy-Kouakou

United States

THE TREE POSE

Francesca Culcasi

Francesco Santulli

Italy

"AME " - A Meditation Escape

Gabriela Rolka

Jonathan Bourhis

François Barcelo Chatellier

France

Nest

Zoltan Szabo

Hungary

Incubation

Tushar Mondal

Sitanan Bhengbhun

India

Breathing Pod

Simeon Chua

Australia

TREETOP

Clara Cruz almeida

Nico Van loggerenberg

South Africa

EQUILIBRIO

Paul johann Magnus

Norway

The Square

Lucia Kalogjera

Maja Genc Kalogjera

Croatia

Cork A

Matteo Casaburi

Italy

Sombra House

Lim Ying

Jeanette Lee

Singapore

Light shell-ter

Lukas Jusas

Elena Paleckyte

Magdalena Beliavska

Lithuania