This digital tool for urban design in water stressed environments uses multi-spectral satellite imagery, digital terrain models, and geotechnical datasets. It models precipitation, soil quality, land use, and groundwater contamination in a dynamic, publicly-accessible instrument for architects, landscape designers, and planners.

It aims to maximize low-carbon localized water supply, reduce dependence on water imports, and to guide water-smart planning by supporting site assessment.

Acknowledgement Prize

In-Closure

Etienne Feher - ABF-lab architects - engineers, Paris, France; Paul Azzopardi - ABF-lab architects - engineers, Paris, France; Noé Basch - ABF-lab architects - engineers, Paris, France

Public park and interactive wall for urban revival

The master plan reintroduces a forest in the heart of Seattle, USA, giving homage to the past while reminding present-day and future residents of the city’s natural habitat.

Planned for implementation over decades to come, the project aims to be adaptable to future changes, an objective that is straightforwardly supported by minimal interventions and restraint of formal means.

Next Generation 1st Prize

Trash for Use

Debbie Chen

Municipal center for harvesting utility from waste

As waste removal becomes increasingly difficult to handle and landfill space more scarce, cities must become more resourceful in how they address their refuse. The project proposes a building in the midst of the metropolis for waste collection and processing, a “machine for turning trash into treasure”.

The municipal Center for Harvesting Utility from Waste (CHUW) recognizes an opportunity to locally treat collected waste, separating the components to exploit its content.

Next Generation 2nd Prize

Machine Landscape

Kenya Endo - Atelier Dreiseitl asia, Singapore, Singapore

Coal mining sites for hydro-pump electricity storage

The project foregrounds the need to promote renewable energy production in the United States and specifically proposes to utilize abandoned underground coal mining sites for hydro-pump electricity storage in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

The water collected in the subterranean caverns comprises a form of embedded energy that can be easily harnessed by using time-honored methods of hydroelectric power generation. 

Next Generation 3rd Prize

Pleura Pod

Beomki Lee - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA; Suk Lee - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA; Daeho Lee - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

Air purification wall transforming carbon dioxide into oxygen

Developed by students at MIT, Pleura Pod is a wall system where architecture and nature coexist. The term “pleura” is used to describe a thin membrane covering the lungs with closed cavities containing a small amount of fluid that minimizes the friction of respiratory movements.

Learning from nature, the research team explored a wall assembly with small cavities filled with algae and through which air is circulated, with the algae transforming carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Next Generation 4th Prize

Timber-Link

Jonathan Enns - Enns Design/solidoperations, Toronto, Canada

Interlocking panelized timber building system

Timber-Link uses cross laminated timber (CLT) to form a flexible system of clustered inhabitable cells. Building panels are prefabricated with insulation and cladding installed before assembly, thus expediting erection and reducing the need for skilled labor on site – especially for situations requiring speedy construction such as disaster relief.

The system can be deployed at different scales, configurations, and circumstances. Layouts can vary through stacking and/or telescoping.

Next Generation 5th Prize

Evolutionary Infrastructure

Mark Turibius Jongman-Sereno - Harvard University, Cambridge, USA; Mira Irawan - New York University (NYU), New York, USA; David O’Brien - Iowa State University, Ames, USA

Adaptive reuse of a parking structure for cultural activities

This project explores the concept and potential of adaptive post-occupation of unused infrastructure.   Using a parking garage the scheme proposes to convert the “found” structure – an “objet trouvé” in the city, so to speak – into a public building hosting a range of cultural activities.

The stacked floors of the garage and its circulation ramp are literally re-used to accommodate new functions.

Next Generation 6th Prize

Latex Formwork

Namjoo Kim - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

Concrete wall panel construction method

The research project investigates a new construction method for creating thin concrete panels. The faceted formwork includes a substructure of flexible wire mesh providing basic geometry, and a lining made of a latex sheet that determines the panel’s final form.

The proposed method aims to reduce the weight of concrete molds and the amount of material used in construction.