Laka Competition is an international architectural competition which seeks innovative ideas that go far beyond typical building solutions.
Each year, designers from around the world are invited to submit their ideas of architecture that reacts. That means architecture which is able to respond and adjust dynamically to the current needs and circumstances.
This architecture lives as an organism since it responds to the external stimuli and it develops because of it . 200 Participants from more than 40 countries submitted over 90 designs to this year’s “Architecture that Reacts”!
1st prize – “Civilization 0.000”. Author: Dimo Ivanov (architect) / Switzerland
‘Civilization 0.000’ is a high tech structure, placed at Cape Horn in Southern Chile, that uses locally available renewable energy sources to generate electricity.
Making use of the ample wind, wave, and tidal energy of this region, the structure would utilize a combination of 19 wind turbines, 4 wave power plants, and 6 tidal power turbines to create 100 million kWh of renewable energy each year.
2nd prize – “noMad – a Behavioral Assembly System”. Authors / Germany, UK: Paul Bart (architect), Marvin Bratke (architect), Dmytro Aranchii (architect), Flavia Ghirotto Santos (architect), Yuqiu Jiang (architect).
‘NoMad’ proposes a behavioral fabrication system that marks a shift from built environment as a finite lifecycle construct to autonomous, non-finite and real-time solutions to adapt dynamically to the demands of its environment.
The project aims at social-architectural issues of integrating automated, self-sustaining behavioral and fully mobile systems into people’s daily life.
3rd Prize – “Towards a Lively Architecture”. Author: David Heaton (architectural designer) / USA.
‘Towards a Lively Architecture’ explores response through tectonic assembly and material behavior. By focusing on the natural behaviors of wood and designing for those behaviors, we can begin to understand new forms of assembly that can change how we think about space.
This increased sensitivity to the behaviors of materials can result in an architecture that is in turn sensitive to its surroundings.
11 honorable mentions:
0112 – “Robotic Cloud”. Authors / USA – School of Architecture, University of Miami, Rodolphe el-Khoury (Dean), Chris Chung (Supervisor), Veruska Vasconez (lecturer), Stefani Fachini (student), Melodie Sanchez (student), Hongyang Wang (student), Kelsey Wang (student).
A dynamic shading system capable of shading various amounts of visitors within a public space at any time.
0019 – “The Craters of Life”. Authors / Turkey – Erdal Göç (architect), Arda Göç (computer engineer).
A solution for green roofs, which tries to mimic nature, it ensures root-growing without any concrete-damage; and water-discharging without steel-corrosion.
0042 – “Currents for Currents”. Authors / Philippines – Deo Alrashid Trevecedo Alam (architect), Pierre Michael Monjardin, Andrew Galano.
The design aims to create power farming through a crowd-sourcing methodology, with the use of tidal generators, current turbine generators and solar power.
0046 – “ACAT – post-emergency housing module”. Authors / Guatemala – Guillermo Paiz (Architect), Javier Penados (architect), Edgar Reyes (architect).
ACAT is a shelter designed to be used after a natural disaster.
0096 – “Superterranean Layer”. Author – Nada Asadullah (architectural designer) / USA. Background image © Navid Baraty 2017.
A project which aims to meet the social and economical needs of users by creating a responsive system adapted from natural systems through cybernetics and human behavioral systems, thus creating a living architecture.
0104 – “Floating Station”. Author – Lenka Petrakova (architect) / UK.
A design which connects research and education facility with ocean plastic collect and recycle center.
0106 – “Wall Parley”. Author – Fengqi Li (designer, student at the Cooper Union) / USA.
The mechanism of this project relies on a communication loop which accommodates human behavior, machine learning and architectural design and results in conversation between human and wall.
0124 – “Uncharted Territory – Habitat in the Garbage Patch”. Author – Benjamin Grabherr (architect) / Germany.
A new habitat generated out of the drifting garbage. It crosses the Pacific and drifts around in the Garbage Patch forming an artificial island by collecting and compressing flotsam and plastic particles.
0125 – “Bioclimatic Machine”. Author – Javier Fuentes Quijano (architect) / Spain.
A project aiming to create an artificial climate using passive techniques. It intends to create an artificial atmosphere where social relations take place.
0068 – “Ice Farming”. Authors / Norway, USA, Colombia – Lene-Mari Sollie (designer), Jared Widner (designer), Jonathan Bartling (Director of Digital Practice), Nicolas Ramirez (digital designer), Anupam Das (computational designer).
Ice Farming along the Arctic coast which has the potential to generate a restorative landscape barrier built of ice to protect coastal permafrost and its surrounding ecosystem.
0015 – “Fuzzy Cloud – Adaptive Energy”. Author – Alexander Grasser (Student, Innsbruck University) / Austria.
A component that, through human interaction, generates a multi-functional adaptive structure, that raises the awareness of sustainable energy and generates a social impact on the community.
Source and images Courtesy of Laka Competition.
