First Prize Winner
Purva Jain (US)

Pixels Exploded
Change which is a constant was not constant anymore; time stood still, and days passed by. Tangibles and intangibles were losing their boundaries in my head. The horizon of the digital screen expanded exponentially as I kept looking at it endlessly and my imagination too became pixelated. This new pixelated world started to transform into an alternate reality where I saw friends, family and colleagues and had conversations. It is as if this new world brought everyone closer to me no matter where they were in the world and still made me realize how far they were. The pixelated world subsumed my real world butwith the realization that the boundaries between this new virtual world and real world were becoming more and more pronounced with each passing day. I was missing something that is the intangible. I lived every pixel, but no memories were made. This realization of hard lines between this blue gleaming pixelated world in my head and the real world that existed pre-pandemic forced me to think of how a sensible work/home space could be. Should it account for the unknown of the future and blur the boundaries between the two worlds, so they seem one?
Blurring these boundaries would require the sensory rejuvenation that is a byproduct of real world interactions with the surroundings (human, nature and the elements) interspersed with the digital world. Architecture could help add a real-world dimension to the digital world where the heightened connections were explored before the pandemic. The digital world made up of pixels as the building blocks could be a key foundational element to blur these boundaries between the digital and the real world. This realization and its connection to foundational blocks in architecture inspired the idea of exploding pixels taking a building form. This architectural form would allow people to reside together with asemblance of symbiosis between their digital and natural surroundings, and grow with them. Everything becomes one and whole.
The proposed site inan urban grid pattern alongside the natural landscape hopes to create an interplay between virtual and natural elements like earth, water, and sky. The urban grid only allows for the checkered pattern where the building form and green space alternate.
The building form is designed by stacking pixels which create towers at the periphery. Such stacking provides a three-dimensional form to the building blocks of the digital world. These towers thus offer the three-dimensional visual interaction with the surrounding lower levels. The upper levels created by random scattered pixels create cascading terraces which provide abundant open space to provide an elevated sense of sensory rejuvenation and higher dimensional interaction.
The open spaces and the size of the pixels at every level try to maintain a desired distance while still allowing free movement and interactions which was sorely missed during the pandemic. The design tackles the unknown that could come again in the form of another pandemic or how the world emerges from the current pandemic with hybrid urban lifestyle. For example, the hybrid urban lifestyle setting also provides a beautiful, non-isolated work environment for the people diminishing the boundary between the tangible and intangible in the unknown.