Winning projects 2014 in Europe

This project in the rich coastal landscape of Southern Italy suffered continuous degradation through industrial activities and has been left abandoned. Obsessed with short-term productivity for too long without evaluating the risks of such a mindset, the goal is to recover this damaged area. A flooded landscape along natural watercourses is proposed, generating an ecosystem filled with flora and fauna, and a special focus on migrating birds.

The project on a new university campus hosts a mix of activities including indoor and outdoor sports facilities, food outlets and various public spaces. Conceived as a minimal structure using rough materials, robust and long lasting techniques, the building is organized vertically with its different activities superimposed on one another, using the roof as a panoramic playground for football and basketball games.

This project identifies a set of rules for establishing a sustainable urban neighborhood based on democratic principles of governance, communication, and participation. Instead of proposing a pre-designed urban tissue, the strategy tenders a collective pattern based on a grid of gardens that structure the area. The framework for physical and social development outlines a porous fabric with low environmental impact and a collective space while furthering ownership capacity-building.

This project to build a 15,000 square meter competence center features perfectly circular atria cut through ceilings and floors crisscross the building, creating opportunities for employees and visitors to meet one another while also providing a sense of the building’s size from within. Inner and outer loadbearing structures of the building are mutually-dependent, voids and passive solar heating allow a climate concept with a minimal technical installation with almost no core.

Aggregates are ubiquitous in the concrete production industry, yet are rarely deployed in an unbound form. This materials research project examines aggregate architectures made from designed injection-molded granulates which self-solidify. This pilot project for a ground-breaking construction method uses the potential of loose, designed granulates that can interlock and consequently require no additional binding agent; fully recyclable and adaptable to almost any site constraints.

This construction materials village is an illustration of sustainable urban logistics as part of a larger ecosystem. By distributing construction materials to Brussels and collecting construction waste from it, the village functions as an important logistics and distribution hub between port and city. The modular and hierarchical structure of the warehouses makes the architecture receptive to different programmatic demands of various site users.

This collection of projects was awarded the “Next Generation” 1st prize, rather than to a single project. Of significance in this regard is the group’s name “Designs for Architectural Territories” which is more than a simple designation of an architectural collaborative, but stands for a program of action – where architectural design is a method to raise and potentially solve societal deficiencies.

This network of “real virtuality” focuses on small towns across Russia. Aiming to put them on the map using multipurpose buildings equipped with modern communi- cations technology, providing the possibility of video-conferences, spreading music from a concert hall into the streets, holding meetings or lectures, etc. By participating in this network, small towns will raise awareness of their own values and reinforce the identity of their citizens.

This materials research project explores the bio-receptivity of ceramics, taking advantage of the material’s porosity that allows it to retain water and using natural fibers such as mosses. The research examines how ceramics, like roof tiles, can become support the organisms, enhancing the material performance in terms of thermal and acoustic parameters – and furthermore photosynthetic organisms also improve air quality and alleviate urban heat island effects.

The project reuses the warmed saltwater rejected from power plants in a mixed use infrastructure for low-cost desalination to supply water to Dublin’s growing population. The water discharge establishes a brine aerosol microclimate – the ideal conditions for the generation of salt marsh gardens, extending the nature reserve and preserving the timber structure. The same water source warms a public swimming pool on the roof top via heat exchangers.

The project revisits a 1970s high-rise in the center of Nantes suffering from the problematic modernist creed of functional separation, which prevents the structure from being integrated into the urban fabric. The scheme aims to transform the existing structure into a “vertical city”, filled with multiple activities. The proposed design deploys public space as a means to link the existing cityscape with the new public spaces of the tower.

Cooling as a process is one of the biggest energy consumers in the building sector globally. Air-shade addresses this problem by proposing a shading system that is sensitive to solar exposure and powered by air – with no need of any external energy source. It can vary in scale, size, material, and form: the proposed device is therefore applicable to a broad variety of buildings, constructions, façades, roofs, windows, etc.