IAHH

Report of Jury: 8^th IAHH International Student Design Competition 2010

Fifty one competition entries from at least one dozen countries were examined by the jury on 27-28 January 2010. Professor Peter Schreibmayer was delayed in travel and joined on the 28^th; hence he was unable to participate in the assessment for awards, but assisted in the deliberations.

The competition theme, Affordable Housing in Sustainable Humane Habitats, presented a formidable architectural challenge, and the jury was happy to note that the entries overall addressed very well the relevant issues arising from the theme. Viewpoints varied from a historical perspective of dwellings of indigenous people, to the integration of foreign migrants into the builtscape of industrial societies; from the rehabilitation of slum dwellers trapped in the expanding metropolis, to reinstating marginalized communities in pastoral landscapes being encroached by  machine civilization.

It was noteworthy that the creative energy needed to find design solutions was perhaps derived from a studied focus on the dispossessed and marginalized sections of our societies. Design was approached generally as a process, starting with research into the context of the built environment reinforced with surveys and typological inventories to derive area planning strategies and a building methodology. Given the general high standard of work, the deliberations of the jury were lengthy and intense, leading to the selection of three quite evenly matched award schemes and six schemes for honorable mention. Read the rest of this entry »