The ISArch Awards, international awards targeting students of architecture, has announced winners for its 8th edition. The aim of the competition is to provide a platform for debate surrounding the architecture solutions students contribute within the framework of their universitystudies.

"A further objective of the ISArch Awards is to encourage young people to join the debate on architecture, contributing their unique vision and opinions," said ISArch Awards.

The 8th edition of the competition has selected 3 winners and 11 Honorable Mentions, and seen 30 finalists, which are all displayed in the competition's website. First prize winner is awarded with €3,000 cash prize, second prize winner with €2,000 and special prize winner is award with  €1,000.

The jury was composed of international architects including Tomislav Dushanov, Associate at Herzog & de Meuron, Alexandros Kallegias, Serior Architect at Zaha Hadid Architects, FALA Atelier, Ben Van Berkel, Founder/Principal Architect at UNStudio, Joshua Prince-Ramus, Founder/Principal/President at REX and Flores & Prats.

"It's interesting to observe at this year’s ISArch, that the vast majority of entries pose very serious and pertinent global questions: migration, extreme density, multi-cultural co-living, sustainability," said Tomislav Dushanov, Associate at Herzog & de Meuron, about this 8th Edition.

World Architecture Community is media partner for the competition and WAC announces winners with jury comments and project details.

Scroll down to see all winners with jury comments below:

1st prize: Sofoklis Kontakis - Public Space Revisited - Fluidisation of Thresholds

Jury comments:

"The strong points are:a clear design intent, an interesting topic, the experimental and deep understanding of materiality, it’s easy to understand," said Ben van Berkel of UNStudio.

"The project positively uses the methodology of combining digital and analogue means for formal investigations. There is room for control over the various ground indulations however the approach shows innovative thinking. The site circulation analysis provides good support of the project’s layout. The material recycling for construction and suggested usage programme complete the architectural proposal," said Alexandros Kallegias.

2nd prize: Eleni Vagianou - Essex Homelands - Inhabiting a Memory Landscape

Jury comments:

"The projects proposal gets straight to the point with various architectural diagrams and visualizations. The panel’s layout andgood balance of text versus drawings is to be acknowledged. There is equally a good a background search to base the argument of the minimal housing unit however the overall concept of the project could have a more provocative manner to address the contemporary problematic of value versus price in living in the UK. The idea of the memory facade is adding value to the proposal but the proposal could also revisit the correlations between minimum requirement of space and minimum usage requirements of space. The renderings have a strong positive impact to the overall proposal’s aesthetics," said Alexandros Kallegias.

"A beautiful architecture that seems lost in its graphic expression," said FALA.

"Although the structure of the building seemed rigid it is very flexible inside and it thought from and for the ones will live in. The drawings are really nice and the diagrams help to understand the project," said Flores & Prats.

3rd prize: Maria Koinidou and Eleni Papantoniou - !Food Rail

Jury comments:

"We value the originality of the idea and to understand meals and food as a social situation. It is interesting to understand the train as a movement and its capacity of transformation according to the place it stops in. The graphic representation is good and lively," said Flores & Prats.

"Very intriguing idea of rethinking the food cycle and its experience, and putting both on display.The idea can be further strengthened, by using the opportunity to rethink the design of the places and the train itself. This way, the project will have overall rich and multi-sided design of the process, the food itself, the public spaces itgenerates and the transformation of the train as space generating vehicle," said Tomislav Dushanov.

"The project positively touches upon the notion of re-usage of space. It is a commendable effort to innovate by converting a moving train into a gastronomical tour however its’ functionality doesn’t seem to be showing any significant impact to the train stops it is making along the different parts of Europe. Good panel layout and use of graphics," said Alexandros Kallegias.

All images courtesy of ISArch Award

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