The ISARCH Awards has announced winners for students. Celebrating its 9th edition this year, the competition that has invited architecture students and recent graduates from all over the world, to submit their school projects and thus actively participate in a debate on the future of architecture, has closed this year's circle. 

The inputs the competition received have been many and vary significantly, in total painting a picture of the contemporary very young architectural production. The ISARCH Awards has selected 3 winners and 10 Honorable Mentions. 

In this 9th edition, the international jury panel is composed of: Eva Franch I Gilabert, Director of Architectural Association School of Architecture, Danny Duong, Assoc. AIA, Senior Associate at SO – IL, Gonzalo Herrero Delicado, Architect and Curator of contemporary architecture and design at the Royal Academy of Arts, Anna Merci, Architect, landscape architect and graphic designer, founder at Anna Merci —Architecture and James Taylor Foster, Editor and writer of esseys and reviews, Architectural designer, Maker of exhibitions.

See the winning projects with short info below: 

1st prize: Hotel Escala para Navegantes, by Jorge Henríquez Yanes

"My will to participate in the competition of IS arch started with the idea to show my final project, that took place in La Palma, Canary Islands, on an internacional virtual platform like this. I wanted to take a chance with this competition because I thought it was great opportunity to learn from other colleagues and their way to see architecture."

The project starts as a re-interpretation of the landscape, to how it was originally, a hydro volcano formed from salt water. The building attempts to impact the area of the cliff and bay as little as possible. The ground floor of the building is of a gauzy appearance, so that air, light and views of the bay pass through it and vice-versa. In this way the ground floor returns views to what they once were, with the incorporation of the new marina in front.

The buildings physical plant facilities are located on the ground floor, along with storage rooms, staircases, lifts and the hotel reception. On the upper floor are located the restaurant wing, kitchen, leisure areas and conference rooms. The residential rooms are placed in a horizontal slice. The third floor houses the hotel guestrooms, as elongated double rooms, with views of the bay beside a south facing patio that protects from the northerly breeze, with a swimming pool at the front and the solar beach.

2nd Prize: Capital for the Collective: The Labour Miracle, Erik Bean

Capital for the Collective: The Labour Miracle explores how sea level rise can be harnessed to positively influence the formation and critical engagement of public urban space. A hypothetical narrative, in which the Labour Party of the United Kingdom is pressured to prove their ideological ideas through architecture, is used to critique the relationship between ideological and pragmatic reactions to climate change. 

Sea level rise is approached not as a design limitation but rather as a unique opportunity. The Labour Miracle harnesses sea level rise through three architectural strategies: Protect labour through the formation of inhabitable Labour Citadels, Provide new public spaces, and Participate in the development of civic mindedness and altruistic public contribution.

"The ISARCH Awards are one of the few international architecture competitions for students or recent graduates to be recognized and share their work. Every year the ISARCH awards put together an exciting and interesting jury, therefore, I was eager to enter my work. I am very pleased to be recognized this year."

3rd Prize: The Fabulous super library, Ernesto Ibáñez Galindo

The point is: people don’t go to libraries. However, they keep coming every weekend to fast food restaurants and clothing stores, although we cannot come up with any logical reason of why one prefers to pay for a bad hamburger instead of reading a book for free. The shopping centre has 

established itself as a basic pillar of family leisure throughout the world.So, from the procedures of visibility and globalization strategies of large companies, we will take and use them for our own purpose. Small eco-stores and folk-politics are not working. The 'think global, act local' implies a withdrawal, but we think global and act global, with the purpose of building a counter-hegemony, a movement that goes beyond the local scale, which puts knowledge in the hands of people and the media so that it can be used and shared. We do not need automatic doors or fingerprint readers, we need a library that can become the town square if the people demand it.

"I decided to participate in IS ARCH because it is a well-known international competition that offers students a good platform to introduce their projects."

10 Honourable Mentions 

Urban Experiences. Laboratory, by Jorge evolo

The Neighborhood's Cemetery : Reclaiming Cemeteries inside the city, by Tala Shelbayh

Pilgrimage of everyday life, by Tzu-Jung Huang, Chia-Wei Chang, Mu-Hwai Liou

Ashes, by Aina Roca

Critical Facadism, by Miguel Ruiz-Rivas

Indigenous Pharmacy, by Richard Tsang

Hotel Bellevue, by Oscar Binder

Urban Scarifications, by Diego Jesús García López

Gather and Reside, by Ting Chen, Lisha Chen, Chi-Shan Chen

[Re]coding the city in a festival of time, by Viktor Gekker.

See all winners form the competition's webpage. 

World Architecture Community is the Official Sponsor for the competition and will announce the shortlist and results of the competition.

All images courtesy of ISARCH

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