Virserums Artmuseum is calling for entries for a competition titled "Architecture of Necessity", an international triennial for sustainable community building, is part of the project WOOD 2019 by Virserum Konsthall with the support of the Municipality of Hultsfred and the Regional Federation of Kalmar County. The call is now open, and you can read the manifesto here. 

What entries can be submitted?

Entries can be along the whole scale from buildings to city or community planning projects. Submissions have to fall within the scope of the manifesto Architecture of Necessity. The international manifesto on the Architecture of Necessity was first launched in 2009. For the exhibitions in 2010, 2013 and 2016 more than 600 entries have been submitted from more than 40 countries.

Considering the most pressing issues of today the jury would especially love to see entries that deal with the rural context – reactivation of forgotten places both with transformation of existing buildings and with new typologies, for example combining living, work and “freespace”. Like many others we are looking for an architectural language, developed for smaller cities and places integrating landscape, typology and details and materials. Entries could be unbuilt projects, but acknowledging the well-known “implementation deficit” in sustainable building we give a certain priority to built projects.

Entries are accepted from professionally active individuals or legal persons such as architectural bureaus, building contractors, local governments or other entities. The submitted project must be dated between 2016 and 2019.

How should the entries be presented?

Entries should be presented, mainly in pictures with a short text explaining how the five criterions of the Architecture of Necessity have been taken into consideration. The presentation should be on four A3 pages, landscape format, in one PDF document. Maximum file size 20MB. The text should be in English in 12 p. Every entry must be submitted only once, via email. This email should contain: Complete contact details of the participant (name, telephone number, mobile phone number, postal address and current email address), as well as the motto of the entry. The project should be attached to the email as a single PDF document. Please have the motto included in the name of the file submitted.

Please submit entries to: [email protected].

Participation

Entries should be submitted to Virserum Konsthall no later than 31st March 2019. Entrants chosen for inclusion in the exhibition will be notified no later than 15th April 2019. Successful participants are then required to supply high-resolution material as instructed by Virserum Konsthall. The jury will select three to five winners. Winners will be notified by 20th May 2019. Taking part in the first selection process is free of charge. Entrants who are chosen for the exhibition will be required to pay a EUR 250 service charge per chosen project. All chosen projects will be published in the book about the project Wood 2019 with a special part on the Architecture of Necessity. The service charge is invoiced and payable to Virserum Konsthall no later than 10th June 2019.

Publication

The winners will be announced 20th May 2019. They will be reimbursed with euro 1200, plus travel expenses to Virserum, as well as accommodation for one person to take part in the opening of the exhibition and to speak about the project at the conference Wood Summit Småland the same day.

Jury and exhibition

The jury is responsible for the selection of entries and the winners. It is led by Claes Caldenby, professor of architectural theory and history at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The other members are Tone Selmer-Olsen assistant professor at the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design and Karli Luik, architect and co-founder at Molumba. The exhibition will be held at Virserum Konsthall between 27th June and 2nd December 2019, as part of WOOD 2019.

Top image courtesy of Virserum Konsthall

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