Architectural initiative arch out loud has released the winners of its’ HOME Competition 2019, an annual competition where designers are asked “What is the future of HOME?”. 

Proposals from all over the world were submitted to the competition and approached this question from three main perspectives: innovation, adaptability, and pragmaticism.

"The Home remains the most significant architectural place we experience throughout our lives. Home represents safety, ownership, privacy, and stability. Home is where we can be alone and with people we care about most. Historically, the home has been a place of permanence," said the competition. 

"Despite how chaotic our lives are, we cherish the consistency of sleeping in the same bed and performing the same daily rituals here. Yet, new trends in digitalization and globalization continue to reshape realms of everyday life and alter our physical environments, including our homes. It is important to examine how we adapt our living spaces to these shifts."

The HOME competition invited all designers to explore ideas of domestic architecture for the future. Designers considered the impacts of global population shifts, the proximity of major cities to coastlines, new materials and building techniques, as well as the rise of co-housing, tiny homes, smart houses and marketplaces like Airbnb. The HOME Competition creates a platform to speculate the ways new technological, political, environmental and cultural changes can redefine the spaces where we live.

Jury composed of Erin Besler, Preston Scott Cohen, Peter Cook, Anne Fougeron, Elena Manferdini, James Ramsey, Nader Tehrani, Tom Wiscombe and Stefano Boeri.

See the winning proposals below:

Images courtesy of  Alex Reed & Dutra Brown

Overall Winner: International Ceramics Friendship Park by Alex Reed & Dutra Brown, Los Angeles, USA

"As the boundary between work and life grows ever thinner, we propose a social housing model based on vocation. The slippage between work and hobby, the professional and the personal, is accelerating and International Ceramics Friendship Park speculates on the spatial implications of our longer lifespans where the ‘#hustle’ never stops. Aging millennials will bring ideals of self-realization with them as they grow older and will continue to prioritize experiences over ownership. Hobbies become work, work becomes life, and the urge to professionalize our creative interests allows everyone to keep ‘living the dream’ into collective retirement."

"I.C.F.P is a city built to house retired potters; complete with a pension tower, Monumental Shard Pile, Tomb Of the Unknown Craftsperson, kiln-heated pool, and labyrinth walking path. In our proposal, organized labour again wields sizable power, this time in proportion to the cultural capital that their craft-work has engendered across media and advertising at large. This post-work craft utopia is funded through the sale of advertisements placed on the facade of The Potters’ Pension Tower and from royalties generated by leveraging the likeness of those who live and work in International Ceramics Friendship Park."

Honorable Mention: Fabricated Landscapes Participants: Blake Minster

Honorable Mention: place of not much use Participants: Dutra Brown

Director’s Choice: The Age of Things
Participants: Yang Wenhao & Wang Yong & Wei Jianxue & Wu Wenqi

Director’s Choice: Personal Place Participants: Haozhou Zeng

Director’s Choice: X-Ray House
Participants: Tommy Nam & Eujean Cheong & Juyong Park

Images courtesy of JIN YOUNG SONG

Innovation Award: Sphere House Tectonics of Buoyancy by JIN YOUNG SONG

"Home is to protect people from dynamic forces happening around the social, technical, and environmental challenges. Thus, the architecture of home can be defined by the performance and capacity of the protection in response to the corresponding challenges. The project focuses on one of the most emergent threats, the climate change: global warming and the rise of sea level. Sphere House is a floating structure with minimized embodied energy, maximizing the use of space by the mechanical rotation and buoyancy on the water. Dynamic control of air chambers in FLIP Research Vessel in 1968 presented the 90-degree rotation of the ship." 

"Rotating wheel space station is designed by Wernher von Braun in 1952 and the centripetal motion is visualized in a film 2001 A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick in 1968. Learning from these works, Sphere house proposes the simple and efficient floating home in which programs are rotating along with the movement of the resident. The skin of the sphere allows dynamic view control and solar energy harvesting with necessary air intake and exhaust, water purification, and buoyant control. The external buoyant system supports the movement of the sphere with structural stability and connection to other vessels."

Honorable Mention: No Longer Abandoned Participants: Wirada Daengpiam & Aunnop Kaewphanna

Honorable Mention: 4 X 4 House
Participants: Galo Canizares & Stephanie Sang (OFFICE CA)

Director’s Choice: Taobao Domesticity Participants: Samuel Esses & Jonathan Wong

Director’s Choice: Domestic Fly Tower
Participants: Oscar Zamora & Alan Mayorga & Mauricio Valenzuela

Director’s Choice: (ANAN/ANON) Systemc Participants: Benjamin Wilke

Images courtesy of Benjamin Mayne & Abraham Francis

Adaptability Award: To the Rest of the Land (ENSATERISHENTOHSA NE OHONTSIA) by Benjamin Mayne & Abraham Francis

"This is not the world left to us. It is a place of poisoned soils, dying forests, and fouled streams. For centuries, colonialists have burned, extracted, and stolen what they please, feeding an infinite hunger with finite resources. This project reconceptualizes sustainability through the Haudenosaunee semi-nomadic tradition, envisioning a home designed to be deliberately abandoned and re-consumed by its environment, feeding and recognizing the perpetual cycle of life and death. The structure is both a home and a cultural device, each successive generation passing crucial knowledge to the next through the act of rebuilding. The swaddling star quilt is the only permanent object, a cherished gift to be maintained over innumerable years and sites, linking each generation to those that came before."

Honorable Mention: + House Participants: Dominique Cheng

Honorable Mention: Amazonian Watchtower Participants: Navid Simanian

Director’s Choice: NeoNomad
Participants: Dylan Roth & Estefania Barajas

Director’s Choice: Reformation Loft Participants: Sumi Li

Director’s Choice: TWO HOUSES (or several) OR ONE (for many more) Participants: Kimball Kaiser

Images courtesy Jeff Jordan & Frank DeBlasio & Jiuye Yan

Pragmatic Award: Alpha Boom Co-Housing by Jeff Jordan & Frank DeBlasio & Jiuye Yan

"The housing proposal aims to accommodate significant shifts in suburban landscapes. First, the shift from traditional “big box” retail to online retail leaves behind large abandoned structures and oversized parking lots. The project proposes a reuse and adaptation of these defunct structures to accommodate the second shift, an aging population. As a large portion of the populace enters their golden years and balks at the idea of traditional senior living typologies, the aging retail fabric could be appropriated to accommodate seniors who would otherwise have to leave their communities."

"The project proposes a hybrid senior housing community (baby boomers) and daycare for young children (generation alpha) in place of an abandoned department store in New Jersey. The hybrid strategy aims to create diverse energy levels and activities throughout the complex in order to benefit both populations. Activities in and around the housing complex could mix the two communities together in both planned and chance encounters."

Honorable Mention: Inevitable House
Participants: Miroslava Brooks & Daniel Markiewicz & Aaron Payne Office: FORMA

Honorable Mention: Home Essentials
Participants: Nero Chenxuan He & Haocheng Dai & Yue Di & Laure Michelon

Director’s Choice: Suburban Horror Story Participants: Matthew Hayes

Director’s Choice: HOUSE of Cores
Participants: Kristy Balliet & Kelly Bair (BAIRBALLIET)

Director’s Choice: Plex(c)ity

Participants: Charles Laurence Proulx & Gil Hardy & Pascale Julien & Maxime Deom

The HOME Competition is an annual competition and will release its third installment in Spring of 2020.

See other winning projects and read more details on arch out loud's HOME competition page. 

Top image: Overall winner: International Ceramics Friendship Park by Alex Reed & Dutra Brown, Los Angeles, USA.

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