PAISAJE BITACORA: Young Architects Forum (YAF) and Committee on Design (COD) Ideas Competition. Winners

The American Institute of Architect’s (AIA) Young Architects Forum (YAF) and Committee on Design (COD) have selected the recipients of the first annual YAF/COD Ideas Competition.

Submitters were asked to explore the issue of temporary relief housing that could have a permanent function, through a concept design problem. While successful site adaptability is a key goal and criterion for this competition, the specific site to demonstrate the solution consists of approximately 200 acres at Houston’s Astrodome and the surrounding parking lots. Entrants could include modifications to the structure of the Astrodome in their proposal, may allow the Astrodome to remain untouched and focus solely on the surface parking areas, or may have some combination of the two. Individual entries could focus their solutionson the provision of either temporary or permanent housing. Entrants were encouraged to address issues of uncertainty associated with either types of housing and with temporary solutions that become permanent.

The jury for the YAF/COD Ideas Competition includes: Barton Phelps, FAIA, Barton Phelps & Associates; Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, Pugh + Scarpa Architects Inc. and Mehrdad Yazdani, Assoc. AIA, Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design.

“Disaster planning is a serious design problem; to dedicate a design competition to this is wonderful,” said the jury. “Overall the depth of exploration of the problem (shelter) seen in the submissions was wonderful.”

Two projects tied for first place; FREE by Gene Kaufman Architect. P.C. and Woven Shelter by Jiyoun. The Community Unit by Eric Polite received third place. Below you can see short descriptions of each project. These projects were recognized June 10 at the AIA National Convention in Miami.