Introduction
Buildner is pleased to announce the results of its Virtual Home / Edition #2 competition!
For the second edition of this event architects and designers were asked: Without physical limits, what considerations would need to be made for a home? In what context do designers choose to place their virtual homes? What are the relationships linking a virtual home with a physical home, or virtual architecture with physical architecture?
Buildner collaborated with an excellent international jury: Tommaso Calistri is an architect at UNStudio’s Dubai office; Christoffer Jansson is a Swedish 3D artist and designer whose work has explored the digital home on social media; Balkan Karisman is a generative artist with a CG background; Karel Klein is the co-director of Ruy Klein and an architect licensed in New York State; Nina Lundvall and James Payne run the UK-based collaborative practice Archipelago; Sean Shen is a lead architect at Shanghai-based ZJJZ Atelier; and Monika Woźniak is an architect and 3D designer from Poland and founder of Antireality.
Buildner and its jury thank all designers that participated in this event, and congratulate the winners on their work.
1st Prize Winner
Ephemeral Domiciles
For our team, architecture competitions are opportunities to push our limits and continuously enhance our design abilities. These events present us with distinctive and intricate design challenges that compel us to think outside the box and discover inventive solutions. Unlike real-life projects, competitions often offer more flexibility, allowing us greater creative liberty. This freedom fosters an environment where we can delve into unconventional concepts and collaborate to redefine the frontiers of design.
Read full interview
United States
Jury feedback summary
Ephemeral Domiciles posits: “Not all wounds are visible. A virtual home serves as both a reflection of reality and a conducive environment for relieving past wounds and fostering self-reconciliation.” It is targeted to be used in particular by individuals with physical and mental disabilities, allowing them to experience the world without physical constraints.
I enjoy this proposal on many different levels. It's smart to recognize that experiencing the virtual is nearly always portrayed as a very personal, inward, individual experience. The author took advantage of this portrayal in multiple ways, including making the home moveable.
Karel Klein / Buildner guest jury
co-director of Ruy Klein, USA
There is a sense of moving from darkness to light and there are powerful suggestions of private, communal and public spaces including light, water, cityscapes and greenery. Spatially interesting and thought provoking.
Nina Lundvall / Buildner guest jury
Cofounder Archipelago, UK
A richly atmospheric and cinematic world with a convincing relationship between the individual domicile and an urban virtual realm. The mobility it suggests allows exploration but does provide some kind of meaningful limitation and resistance to the virtual realm. This submission also raises some kind of awareness of how AI generated worlds might augment VR.
James Payne / Buildner guest jury
Cofounder Archipelago, UK
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
Order your review hereWhile the project is conceptually strong and offers a wide range of well-developed renderings, it would greatly benefit from more consistent layout and information conveyed across the four sheets. The varied layouts make it challenging for a viewer to simply navigate. The sheets are also overwhelmingly dark in color. Rather than blackness the author might explore the positive effects of lighter colors and daylight. The texts would benefit from reduced length and larger font sizes. Nonetheless, the imagery is compelling and sophisticated.
-
7/10 Linework
-
9/10 Quality of drawings
-
7/10 Balance of color
-
6/10 Layout
-
7/10 Hierarchy
-
4/10 Annotation
-
7/10 Text
-
8/10 Clarity of story
-
7/10 Clarity of diagrams
-
7/10 Quality of overall presentation
Enter an open architecture competition now
2nd Prize Winner
The Roof Over Memories, Dreams and Present
Engaging in architectural competitions serves as a valuable means to push one's boundaries and discover inventive solutions for design challenges. These competitions act as catalysts for generating future ideas, projects, and inspirations. They also provide an excellent platform to address societal issues or showcase the necessary steps to enhance the environment, contributing to positive change.
Read full interview
Bulgaria
Jury feedback summary
If you are observing, you are already influencing: the author suggests that the virtual world is not merely a reflection of reality but an abstract landscape “shaped by our minds and hearts” that performs as a refuge. The virtual home features elements of real world architecture such as glass walls and columns as objects of memory that also transform and take on new purposes to alter experience and perception.
The proposal emphasizes the importance of having many possibilities in a coherent environment in a straightforward manner.
Balkan Karisman / Buildner guest jury
Generative artist, Turkey
I enjoy this proposal for two reasons - the notion of the dream, and the potential of the concept of the virtual window. If this project took on more carefully the kinds of virtual experiences that belong to the domestic realm, or considered the many ways the window is already engaging in the virtual, it could be even more impactful.
Karel Klein / Buildner guest jury
co-director of Ruy Klein, USA
Notable for the suggestion it gives of how virtual tools can be integrated with architecture in a powerful way, perhaps it presents a more convincing real world suggestion rather than a virtual world.
James Payne / Buildner guest jury
Cofounder Archipelago, UK
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
Order your review hereThe presentation assumes a clear and consistent layout that makes use of a primary image and a secondary detail or enlarged image within the same virtual space. The effect is like a magnifying glass, positively bringing clarity to the design intent. The accompanying texts, however, are rather long and winding, and could be improved through reduction and precision. The project simultaneously tackles many concepts and, while the presentation is ambitious and takes on many scales of thought, the author may consider distilling these ideas to yield a more powerful design statement.
-
7/10 Linework
-
7/10 Quality of drawings
-
8/10 Balance of color
-
9/10 Layout
-
7/10 Hierarchy
-
5/10 Annotation
-
6/10 Text
-
7/10 Clarity of story
-
7/10 Clarity of diagrams
-
7/10 Quality of overall presentation
3rd Prize Winner +
Buildner Student Award
Buildner Student Award
Driss' Virtual Home - A Virtual Utopia Drawn by Transference
As mentioned, we continuously engage in research and experimentation with various design methods. Furthermore, the innovation of design methods relies on the development of time and technology as key driving forces. Recognizing the virtual nature of the Internet era, we understand that the difference between this virtual realm and reality represents a breakthrough in design innovation.
Read full interview
Jury feedback summary
Driss' Virtual Home - A Virtual Utopia Drawn by Transference: the VR-augmented home offers a customized virtual space that is private and secure where one might come to connect emotionally through memory and sensory experience. It is a highly personalized home that one can also use for virtual work, business, socializing and recreation free from physical constraints.
The entry takes advantage of the lack of "real world" constraints to create a series of subsequent mini worlds that are self-referential and rightly so neglect to interact with a non existing outside world.
Tommaso Calistri / Buildner guest jury
UNStudio, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Imagining burgeoning technology set in some distant or alternative future defines the genre of science fiction. In reading the text for this project, I recall JG Ballard's "The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista"- a story about architecture and the strange technologies of the future house. What I appreciate with this proposal is the level of detail that has been developed in thinking about this particular fictional future.
Karel Klein / Buildner guest jury
co-director of Ruy Klein, USA
The transference of both real and virtual is great. Whether it is a virtual home or in the future, human beings long for nature.
Sean Shen / Buildner guest jury
architect at ZJJZ Atelier, China
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
Order your review hereThe project offers some enticing visuals, but it suffers from overwhelming use of body text and lack of descriptive texts to clarify the images and diagrams. How has the form of this home been generated and how does this formal diagram relate to the development of the axonometrics, for instance? The author would benefit from greatly reducing the text, dividing it more evenly across the four sheets, while at the same time providing more specific annotation to clarify the concepts in each of the primary rendered images. Finally, while many of the images are individually powerful, there is little relationship among the layout of the four sheets, and a well-communicated project always benefits from general consistency.
-
7/10 Linework
-
6/10 Quality of drawings
-
7/10 Balance of color
-
6/10 Layout
-
7/10 Hierarchy
-
4/10 Annotation
-
4/10 Text
-
6/10 Clarity of story
-
6/10 Clarity of diagrams
-
6/10 Quality of overall presentation
Honorable Mentions
Shortlisted projects
Human Centric
Germany Virtual Journey
Base 16
The Roof Over Memories, Dreams and Present
VIRTUAL INTERACTION
Liquid Home
Free Mind
Driss' Virtual Home - A Virtual Utopia Drawn by Transference
Ever-Changing Virtual Playground
Memory
Tabula Rasa
Ephemeral Domiciles
Breathome
Jz-9821 planet
Meteora
