World Architecture Awards 10+5+X Submissions

The project is located in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. The land area is 1020 square meters. The total area of ​​the house is 429 square meters. The ground 1 floor villa living room is double height floors high. On the left side there are 3 rooms and a family room. The house has 6 rooms in total. While designing the house, an architectural identity was defined with reinforced concrete floors at different levels. In order to prevent the houses on the other side of the road on the right from watching the balcony on the 1st floor, the 1st floor terrace was closed with a blank wall in this direction. 3 different floors and the console wall on the right side are surfaces that slide over each other and define each other. On the left side of the house, a mass was designed with a sloping roof that would create a contrast with these flat floors, and different movements between the right and left of the house were provided to strengthen each other's existence by creating a contrast. At the front of the house there is a sitting area which is an extension of the living room. This semi-open sitting area of ​​30 square meters is a part of the garden. The swimming pool, which is 4 meters by 14 meters, was designed on the boundary wall side of the garden. The architecture of the house is unique to this villa due to the client's desire for privacy on the first floor balcony. The floating floor pieces allowed us to achieve an original design, distinguishing the architecture of the house from other existing house stock.

G 1 floors
Plot area: 1020 sqm
Total construction area:429 sqm
Selim Senin
Bilgehan Kucukkuzucu

In today’s secular world, the definition of a worship space transcends religious boundaries. Drawing inspiration from Iran’s historical worship spaces, the design revisits the foundational elements of Mithraic sanctuaries, fire temples, and Persian mosques. The comparison reveals shared spatial genes across these typologies, with variations in their relationships and hierarchies.
During the Islamic era, the spatial organization of mosques closely mirrored that of Mithraic sanctuaries, as if reinterpreted for a new cultural context. However, some spatial potentials, such as the dynamic relationship between interior and exterior in the Dome Hall, were lost in translation. Conversely, elements like the portico were introduced, enriching mosque architecture.
This project seeks to reinterpret these overlooked qualities and integrate them into a contemporary context. The result is a prayer hall that reflects the spiritual and social aspirations of its users while paying homage to the architectural lineage of Iranian worship spaces.
The Ideation Process
The interplay between the material world of the industrial town and the spiritual essence of the prayer hall, alongside the spatial constraints of placing a conventional prayer space amidst commercial blocks, informs the centralized underground design. This approach envisions a "spatial container" embedded within the industrial town, acting as a bridge between material and spiritual realms. Submerging the structure underground mitigates noise pollution and enhances climatic comfort, creating a serene space amidst the region's harsh environment without disrupting the flow of commercial activities above.
Recognizing the absence of a collective space for rest and interaction, the prayer hall is designed as a multipurpose environment. Beyond facilitating religious rituals, it offers a tranquil space for reflection and social connection. By relocating the portico from its conventional position within the mosque to the exterior, the design fosters an inviting environment that enhances spiritual and social experiences. This innovation improves the space’s functionality for extended stays and meaningful interactions.

The Dome Hall
In pre-Islamic places of worship, the dome chamber was a semi-enclosed space that allowed natural elements such as light, wind, and rain to enter, enriching the users' spiritual experience. This concept has often been overlooked in modern translations of worship spaces.
The design seeks to revive this quality by incorporating layered spatial envelopes that connect the inner and outer environments. This approach balances the spiritual openness of traditional sanctuaries with the introspective nature of contemporary mosque architecture, retaining the dome’s enclosed essence while embracing external elements.

The Minaret
Given the limited area of the industrial town, a towering minaret is unnecessary. Instead, the minaret is reimagined as a symbolic element integrated into the prayer hall’s structure. It channels daylight towards the Qiblah during the day and emits interior light outward at night, establishing a dialogue between the inner spiritual sanctum and the external environment.

Spatial Organization: The Relationship Between Parts and Whole
Throughout history, spatial organization has reflected prevailing ideologies and worldviews. For this project, instead of segmenting spaces, each area is nested within another. This creates an architecture of layered spaces rather than isolated enclosures, offering a multitude of possibilities for spatial interactions.

Lead Architect: Meysam Feizi
Design Team: Iman Panahi, Behrooz Nakhaei, Masoud Faraji

Izmir has been a cosmopolitan, important coastal and port city of Western Anatolia with its port and commercial identity that developed depending on its background area from the past to the present, and with its cultural identities it has lived on. In the 17th century, the city was dominated by the Ottomans. The city turned into an eastern Mediterranean port city in the 17th century and became a commercial center. The mouth of the estuary was completely closed, this area turned into a swamp formed by seafood and soon filled with warehouse type inns.
İzmir Konak Square, lesser known as Atatürk Square, is an area that has undergone a lot of changes in its history of more than 200 years.
Konak Square has been a square, far from being a fixable place in its active history, with its 'structure' according to the political identities of different periods. This transformation has become more evident with the growth of the spatial scale over time. Until recently, Konak Square has been an open space that does not offer an ideal public life and has low spatial use due to the nature of the structures and uses that define it. It can be attributed to the fact that it outweighs it, that it cannot go beyond a mere landscaping and that the scale of the area has been lost.
The project has been designed to reference the historical past of Izmir. While the assembly hall, which is the symbol of democracy, was handled gradually and designed in the order of the ancient amphitheater, the triple columns that will carry this structure refer to the columnar architecture of the Agora. The three-column, in which the assembly is carried, represents the people who shape democracy with the elections they have made, and explains that the assembly can survive with this popular election. Thanks to the gradual elevation of the assembly structure to occupy the least space on the square, the remaining area opens towards the mosque and monument with steps and continues the public space in the project area. Instead of a building that covers the whole area, the building is positioned in a way that touches the ground the least and increases the use of people.
The semi-open public space designed on the basement floor can be accessed from two points, and the exhibition area and cafe area below can be accessed.

Plot: 3332 sqm
Composite Structure
Selim Senin
Bilgehan Kucukkuzucu
Alev Doru
Mehmet Bikec
Dicle Yildirim
Beyza Kinsiz

The project is located in the city of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, at one of the most central points of the city. The land area is 14 000 m2 and has a slope of approximately 20 meters. The campus, which includes 5 different departments:
1-School of Computing and Information Technology
2-Business School
3-School of Law
4-School of Education
5-Graduate School-Masters

In order to reflect the topography of Kigali architecturally, we created a hill-shaped architecture by breaking down the masses instead of a single large mass, and referenced the topography of Kigali consisting of thousands of hills. The campus, where more than 5000 students will study at the same time, also references the fragmented architectural texture in the surrounding area with its fragmented masses.

The curvilinear architecture that dominates the exterior architecture of the building continues in the interior as well. This curvilinear geometry forms the main structure of interior architecture design in classrooms, atriums, conference halls and lecture halls.

At the junction point of the masses, there is a 20-meter opening, and a semi-open amphitheater for 400 people is formed here. This area is an amphitheater area where the university can hold various social activities for its students.

Since the building is on a sloping land, entrances to the building are provided from different elevations. The campus can be accessed from the upper road and the lower road, and there are 7 different entrances to the building.




38 400 sqm
5000 students
Selim Senin
Bilgehan Kucukkuzucu
Alev Doru

Beach house, located among the pine forests and rice fields of Comporta, set in sand dunes, in a place of great natural beauty and strength of fauna and flora.
The center of inspiration was the deserted and wild beaches of the region and the reproduction of this environment, with dunes and vegetation.

The project is composed of 2 pure volumes with great transparency, around which you can appreciate the complexity of the nature that surrounds them.
A wooden volume on the ground floor and on top of it a concrete volume on the first floor.
Patios were created on the ground floor, allowing the sand and dune vegetation to also inhabit the social area, creating the feeling of the outside inside, which can be completely enclosed.

To emphasize transparency and taking the purity of this intention to an extreme, the concrete volume of the first floor is supported only on two points on the volume limits, with no central support, leaving the entire living room and kitchen without interference from structural vertical elements, being able to open totality for both the outdoor space that communicates with the pool and the interior patios, making the boundary that defines interior and exterior almost imperceptible.

The extensive use of vegetation outside is a biophilic approach bringing nature indoors in all areas, bedrooms and social areas, providing an important contact with nature, with a careful choice of several local species that merge with the architecture.
The exterior spaces of terraces, balconies and gardens were designed to emphasize the natural beauty, for permanence and as a complement to the interior, with continuity between materials and design from the interior to the exterior, which gives a sensation of depth to the pine forest that extends along the dune vegetation that was carefully designed to embrace the pool.

The oversized interior height of the spaces, and the full-height windows with full opening, provide harmonious entrances of light and a perfect visual relationship between the interior and exterior, bringing all the natural surroundings of the place to the home.

As for the materials, exposed concrete was chosen because it is a material that allowed us to create weight and visual lightness where and when desired, in addition to the uniquely textured wood designed for this project that was applied to the exterior and interior, corten steel, and large sand- colored natural stones with pieces of incrusted fossils that resemble the beach.

Project Type: Residential | Single Family
Built Area: 400m2
Architects: Paulo Fernandes Silva | Diana Fernandes Silva