Troll’s Tongue Observation Platform competition Honorable mention winners - Tomasz Leonik and Zuzanna Jakubowska

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the Honorable mention winners of our "Troll’s Tongue Observation Platform" – Tomasz Leonik and Zuzanna Jakubowska from Poland!

Tomasz Leonik and Zuzanna Jakubowska

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 are Tomasz and Zuzanna, architecture students from Poland who completed our BSc in Architecture at Warsaw University of Technology. Currently, we are continuing our journey with architecture in Sweden, where we remain professionally active while working on completing our Master's theses. Our experience spans a wide range of projects, with a focus on themes such as sustainability, architecture in context, heritage, transformation, material reuse, energy and cost efficiency together with and ad hoc design. We are passionate about exploring new technologies including parametric design, photogrammetry and hybrid techniques that combine digital and analogue approaches. Additionally, we teach these methods together at Chalmers University of Technology.

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?

Both collaboratively and individually, we have worked on numerous student and commercial projects in Poland and Sweden, spanning a wide range of scales, from solutions for individual users to large-scale public buildings and urban transformations. Our most recent joint student project involved the transformation of Valhallabadet in Gothenburg, one of the few remaining sports facilities in Europe built during the mid-20th century, a time when investments in high-quality materials were intended to reflect democratic change in society. Recognizing the building's significant local and global value, we proposed a comprehensive functional transformation as an alternative to its impending demolition, offering a new perspective on its reuse.

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

We believe that both architects and the concept of architecture hold unique significance for society and the environment. Architecture is not only a field for addressing complex issues, it also necessitates collaboration across multiple disciplines to foster connections between them. Thus, it is a multi-faceted endeavor that balances the needs of various elements and actors. To us, an architect serves as a bridge between the individual and the collective, a manager of sustainable solutions and a mediator between the timeless quality of tradition and the rapid efficiency of modernity.

Why do you participate in architecture competitions?

Architectural competitions provide us with the opportunity to showcase our projects to a broader, multinational audience, including individuals with multicultural backgrounds and extensive experience, whose reactions help evaluate our ideas. This experience exposes us to different perspectives, opinions, and tastes regarding architectural solutions. It offers us valuable insight into how our projects are perceived, rather than letting them gather dust at the bottom of a drawer. Many competitions address themes that go beyond those typically explored in student or even professional projects, offering additional opportunities for growth in diverse fields and topics.

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

Our advice for those struggling with the decision to participate in architectural competitions would be: try it. This may sound like a simple piece of advice without much depth, but we believe that if you can gain something, taking on the challenge always gives you a chance of winning. If you don’t make the attempt, your chances will always remain zero. Competitions involve many unknowns, often beyond our control. For this reason, many attempts might end in failure due to various factors. However, by participating, you can gain much more than you might lose. If you win, you gain the satisfaction of a job well done. If you lose, you gain valuable experience from the design process and lessons from your mistakes—knowledge that may unexpectedly come in handy in the future for another project.