Engineering
Structural systems, material innovation, and technical solutions that enable architectural and design outcomes.
Earthquake Shelter Design: A Foldable Refuge House Built to Fall From the Sky Into Iran's Seismic Zones
Huang Jiawei's shortlisted Reborn entry folds a double-layer membrane shelter into an air-droppable unit that expands on arrival in disaster zones.
CityScraper: A Permeable Airfoil Tower That Trades Energy, Water and Food with San Francisco's SoMa
A shortlisted CityScraper 2020 tower at 610 Brannan Street reads the skyscraper as a living cell, its airfoil skin harvesting wind, sun and rain.
Eco-Chapel: A Forest-Ringed Chapel in Addis Ababa Built from Bamboo, Earth and Community Ritual
Stanislav Milchev sets a chapel on the highest ground of a forested Bole plot, with a ring-roofed community centre greeting the city at the gate.
DRIFT: Turning a Spent Adriatic Oil Rig into an Anchored Laboratory and a Drifting Research Module
Calvin Ridenour pairs a retired offshore platform with a nomadic floating module, holding ocean research between fixed infrastructure and open sea.
Koala Haven: A Wildlife Rehabilitation Center Organized as One Continuous Timber Loop
A rehabilitation center, museum and research wing wrap into one continuous timber loop, threading koala habitats through green courtyards.
Spray School: A Misting Steel Canopy That Turns a Campus Roof into a Climate Lesson
Hu Tao breaks a school into raised volumes under one undulating lattice roof that sprays mist in summer and harvests sunlight in cooler months.
Yggdrasills: Growing a World Tree from the Steel Bones of Abandoned Offshore Oil Rigs
Abandoned offshore oil rigs become paired towers that harvest marine debris, stacking research, ritual and manufacturing along a living vertical spine.
El Hogar: Ephemeral Refugee Housing That Expands, Contracts and Dissolves on the Rio Grande
A shortlisted No Man's Land entry treats refugee housing as a process, pairing modular hexagonal units with a civic spine along the Rio Grande.
Turning Point: Twisting Desert Towers That Archive Human Culture Against Climate Collapse
Modular continental culture towers, powered by solar mirrors and built in carbon-absorbing Ferrock, recast the memorial as living infrastructure.
The Wound Memorial: A Desert Monument That Only Heals When Its Visitors Start Pedalling
A desert memorial facing the pyramids, where cycling visitors generate the energy that raises its central platform and turns climate repair into effort.
Le Monstre de Clignancourt: A Light-Bending Canopy That Turns the Petite Ceinture Into a Garden
A parametric canopy along Paris's Petite Ceinture recalibrates sunlight for plant growth, carrying ecology and public life from tunnel to open air.
New Life of Disappearing Architecture: Inserts That Let a Tuscan Fortress Keep Fading
Anna Wikiera threads ramps, terraces and dark glazed volumes through the ruins of Ripafratta's Saint Paolino Fortress without halting its slow decay.
