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A4TC - ARCHITECTURE THESIS COMPETITION WINNERS

31.03.2022, Thu
A4TC - ARCHITECTURE THESIS COMPETITION WINNERS

© José Gonçalves (Portugal)

A4TC is an architecture thesis competition organized by artuminate in association with archiol, this competition received huge response from around the world.


Jury members:
Antonella Marzi
Rosa Estela Santi
Scroll down to check the winning entries.

Top 3 winners:
1st Prize:   José Gonçalves (Portugal)
2nd Prize: Namish Jain (India)
3rd Prize: Filippo Vajra &  Giovanni Ratto (Italy)


Honorable Mention
Aum Gohil  (India)
Dana Ibrahim  (Jordan)
Mohamad Alamin Younis (Lebanon)

1st Prize:
José Gonçalves (Portugal)

REITERATING THE VERTICAL URBAN FACTORY
The decentralization of the industrial city, brought about by the humanitarian and sociological crisis in urban centers at the end of the 18th century, solidified the hegemonic roles that industry and infrastructure currently play in urban expansion, albeit incompatibly with urban life. This “removal of process” from cities (Rappaport 2014) compelled us to design industry away from cities instead of adapting industry to them.

Although this crisis was resolved, nowadays with the incessant cultural and ludic densification of river-front areas in cities worldwide - and the aforementioned peripheralization of industry from these locations - there have been tensions between these newfound uses and irreplaceable industry, still in use.

In the oriental edge of Lisbon there is a silage terminal – The Beato Silage Terminal, that by managing more that 20% of all grain that the country consumes, is an irreplaceable element in Lisbon’s port.

This irreplaceable industry, in the face of Beato’s newfound creative development as well as Lisbon’s riverfront massive urban projects creates a new architectural stranglehold.

Given this clash of forces, could this infrastructure be integrated into Beato's urbanity, instead of being removed or completely separated from the city? Could it simultaneously be, as an hybrid building, adapted to meet the needs of the Beato region as the new creative hub of Lisbon?

For this integration to be possible, a symbiotic relationship of value between two main programs is created a long with the utilization of a sub product of the silage process.

In beato, art is produced and not exposed, therefore the creation of ways to integrate the art community with its desired public is imperative. Yet proposing an artistic center could be a catalyst towards gentrification and therefore could be an inadequate solution.

The proposal aims to respond to this problem by establishing a relationship with two main programs: Amenities (cafés, restaurants and retail) and spaces for the creation of art (workshops, performance art spaces, and co-work spaces). It is proposed that these two cores be adapted in a way as to always establish a visual connection between the creative process and the amenities, creating value. This value would then be redistributed as to sustain the spaces used by the art community.

The intervention, therefore, results from a sectioning of a number of silo cells as to create two programmatic cores (amenities and makerspaces) with clear sight views between. These sight views, between the creative process and the amenities, create value. This value would then be redistributed as to sustain the spaces used by the art community. Then, the grain dust produced by the silage residue would be used as compost in order also sustain the amenities via a farm greenhouse.

This phenomenon of the process removal (Rappaport, 2014) is then, essentially reversed by the conception of an architecture that integrates the industrial process urban life. This results in a project that simultaneously responds to the needs of the Beato region, integrating them with the industrial process of the silage complex.

2nd Prize: 
Namish Jain (India)

AIKYAM: A MEMORIAL FOR PEACE, POKHRAN
A peace memorial is a contrast to a war memorial. Where a war memorial showcases a dreadful event of war in history, peace memorial on the other hand appreciates the state of contentment.

The approach of making this peace memorial has been through the passage of drastic events faced during a war or a conflict. The project marks the value and importance of peace by showcasing the aftermath of a war.

After independence the scenario of peace in India has worsened. We have been ranked 139th position among 163 countries in the global peace index 2020. The project tries to show the importance of peace as well as stands as the face for “India with Peace”.

To imagine such a project, a research on ‘memorial spaces and its user experience’ and multiple case studies of buildings such as: Peace memorial, Hiroshima; Yad Vashem, Israel, etc. have been done.

The conclusion of the research emerged that, though interaction between the memorial space and its occupant is emotionally impacted through various factors like sound, temperature etc. but its majorly through its form, material and light.

Now the case studies were achieved accordingly. Different spaces from these projects (interior and exterior) were studied and a certain pattern was analysed about the context, location, approach, zoning and the circulation on site and inside the structure, etc. Features such as radial approach, continuous & forced circulation, etc. have been carried forward to the design.

Keeping in mind that a site should have a great context; also people of the vicinity must know the outcomes of a war, Pokhran was considered the most suitable location for the project. It is the nuclear test site of India. The people of Pokhran are aware of the destruction and know that if a war breaks then it will be the end of humanity.

The project has been dealt with in such a way that maximum tourists can be attracted to the site. For this an illusion has been created. The site has been developed in such a way that it appears as if the site has witnessed a war.

The project tries to show that a visitor must experience numerous emotions through their journey. For experiencing the true value of peace a person has been taken through destruction, fear, anxiety, loneliness etc. of war. For this dark spaces have been created with angular walls, huge heights, narrow spaces etc. and even the landscaping is inspired from warscape with several monuments for the same.

The project incorporates several techniques such as windmills and solar panels to generate sustainable energy, spaces are submerged in the ground to make them cool and to make them more comfortable wind towers are also used which will also cope up with the extreme climate of Pokhran. Hence, these techniques make the project economically viable.

The project drives with the notion that after visualizing the torments of war an individual will realize the virtuous of peace and push the idea of a better world.

3rd Prize:
Filippo Vajra &  Giovanni Ratto (Italy)

LA MEGALÓPOLIS DE NADIE 
A research and a proposal for the occupation of Public Space in Mexico City.

As reported by INEGI (InstitutoNacional de Estadística y Geografía), in the second quarter of 2018, in Mexico, about 30,500,000 people worked in the informal sector: these numbers show an increase of 3.3% compared to the same period of the previous year. In Mexico City, five out of ten workers belong to the informal sector, dedicating themselves to cleaning, construction, transportation and a multitude of services and commercial activities. Faced with this scenario, some deputies of the Morena party proposedto regularize more than 2,000,000 street workers. The municipality is also taking steps to raise millions of dollars to invest in public works.

This project proposal, based on field research, therefore moves in the direction of finding a compromise between the design of the public space and its occupation by the actors of the informal sector, considered not a problem for the city but rather a precious resource for the functioning of a complex metropolis. In fact, living the city on a daily basis, people have to face journeys that last up to an hour or more and during this time they are accompanied and come into contact with the dense network of products and services offered informally in a rapid and diffused way.

Following a systematic analysis of case studies found in the public space, therefore, the project for an urban infrastructure was designed in an area of the historic city center with a strong commercial identity.

The identified lot has a pre-existing simple metal roof built to accommodate a community of traders established in the area for several generations. The choice to intervene in this area was therefore dictated by the “non-virgin" nature place as a first mediation hadalready taken place between "top-down" logic and "bottom-up" processes.

Thanks to direct contact with users, it was possible to collect some of the dominant issues that were taken into account during the design: the result is a structure that works on more than one spatial scale trying to integrate attention to the context, enhancement of services and sustainability.
The project was thereforere solved in a modulated wooden structure to allow the circulation of common users and informal devices.

Through a series of simple space operations we have met the needs of users who have already been located for years in the area and further space has been set up for public activities, leaving a certain amount of “negotiable” space for random informal activities.

Working at multiple scales (infrastructure, architecture and design), we tried to create a variety of situations to make the project more flexible suggesting different uses.

The project is a lineal space with a certain variety of environments which host more fixed activities, others more occasional and widely offer new areas for socialization and leisure.

A certain attention was also given to the design of technological solutions to achieve easy maintain ability and the reduction of waste of the parts that would gradually deteriorate.

HONORABLE MENTION

Aum Gohil  (India)
Dana Ibrahim  (Jordan)
Mohamad Alamin Younis (Lebanon)

SHORTLISTED ENTRIES
1. Amit Imtiaz (Bangladesh)
Breathing Hydrological Infrastructure

2. Hélder Simões (Portugal)
The infrastructure is inserted and developed throughout the city and functions as a backbone of the entire plan aiming to solve problems from urban design to the precariousness of housing.

3. Sanath Thomas Samuel (India)
Algorithmic Design Process In Spatial Planning For A Winery In Nashik

4. Daniel Franco, Carlos Huerta & Ana Garrido (Mexico)
Void Dynamics: The Catalysts Of Succession.

5. Alanna Deery (US)
RE-Generate

6. Mitsuki Ikeda (US)
Peeling Architecture

7. Ramsha Nazir Malik (Pakistan)
Paiwand; architecture as a technique of "damage eviction" with basic concept of "grafting"

8. Francesco Ferraro (Italy)
New administrative centre of niandiwa - kenya

9. Tushar Mondal (India)
Autonomous Transhumance

10. Letizia Rollo (Italy)
“The inner of the external. A contemporary project for ragusa”

11. Nitika Goyal (India)
Architecture as a catalyst for story-telling: designing a na'vi settlement

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