Southeast Asia Building – May-June 2018

(Jacob Rumans) #1

2nd prize winner



  • Chicago Pillar
    The second prize winner was
    ‘Chicago Pillar’ by Jon Carag
    from the USA. The former
    created an almost entirely
    universal design, attractive
    in its simplicity.


3rd prize winner + BB Student Award



  • The Wall
    The third prize winner was ‘The Wall’ by Elizabeth Compeán Michel, Gabriel
    Madrigal Betancourt, Juan Jesús García Castro, and Rodrigo Zertuche Rodríguez
    from Mexico University. The project - which was also awarded the BB Student
    Award - played with the topical concept of building walls in order to
    close national borders.


<< Jury Commentary >>
There has been much demand for
proposals considering the famous
‘Chicago Spire’ site which awaits
development in that city’s downtown.
Though the submission focuses on this
particular site, the design has the potential
to be used anywhere. A simple cylindrical
tower is wrapped in a ribbon of perimeter
green spaces that transform the typical
office, and which are well-designed with
details showing deep planters permitting
the growth of trees and appropriate
drainage. The resulting form is attractive
and unique, related directly to its program.
The jury would encourage the designer
to further express the ‘green’ nature of
the design in the exterior rendering and
sections.

<< Jury Commentary >>
While among the least developed designs
in the winner’s category, this was also one
of the judges favorites. There is so much
tension and debate today concerning
desires to close national borders by
building walls, or making them more
impenetrable by increasing their security.
This proposal poses the very interesting
question of how to spacialize the number
of people crossing America’s border -
what would happen if immigrants were
to be given housing at the border? As
shown in these images, towers stretch
across the frontier, reminiscent of the
watchtowers stretched along China’s
Great Wall, somehow giving order and
rhythm to an infrastructure otherwise
so winding and vast. The towers as
shown in this submission become part
of this infrastructure, forming a sort of
intermediary nation of people in-between,
the basis for a great design project with so
much more to explore.

Photo: © Jon Carag & Bee Breeders


Photo: © Elizabeth Compeán Michel; Gabriel Alejandro Madrigal Betancourt;
Juan Jesús García Castro; Rodrigo Zertuche Rodríguez and Bee Breeders

MAY-JUNE 2018 SEAB 49


ARCHITECTURE + INTERIOR
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