Storefront for Art and Architecture is pleased to announce the results of the Taking Buildings Down Competition, juried by Jeff Byles, Keller Easterling, Pedro Gadanho, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Annabelle Selldorf, and INCA.

 

Taking Buildings Down, the winner of Storefront’s Competition of Competitions, was a call for ideas that sought proposals for the production of voids; the demolition of buildings, structures, and infrastructures; or the subtraction of objects and/or matter as a creative act.

 

The competition received over 160 qualified submissions. The members of the jury elected to give three ex aequo awards as well as five honorable mentions. Each of the three ex aequo awards will receive $1,000 and each of the five honorable mentions will receive $100.

 

 

Ex Aequo Awards:

 

Empty University

Antonas Office (Aristide Antonas, Katerina Koutsogianni, Yannikos Vassiloulis, Chara Stergiou)

 

Empty University

Empty University

 

Jury Statement:

The jury values the proposal’s demand for a new spatial and educational paradigm achieved through the strategic elimination of the non-bearing walls of a building in Athens. This process of removal allows for and insinuates the emergence of new forms of collective learning. The project’s site and program within Greek contemporary politics makes this proposal of spatial and ideological erasure a very timely one, and one that makes us reflect not only about Greece, but also about the architectures that sustain and produce educational environments around the world.

 

The Life of a Building

Maciej Siuda, Rodrigo Garda Gonzalez, Madej Siuda, Rodrigo García González, Aleksandra Borçecka, Agnieszka Wach, Katarzyna Dabkowska

 

The Life of a Building

The Life of a Building

 

Jury Statement:

The jury values the specific use of erasure as a form of spatial narration, storytelling, and memory production. “The Life of a Building” presents a series of interventions before the total demolition of the building. In a highly saturated built environment, where buildings are being demolished too often just at once, the project presents a much layered understanding of the built environment and its history.

 

 

Man’s Temple and The Forgotten Canyon

Untitled Studio (William Smith, Hiroshi Kaneko)

 

Man's Temple and the Forgotten Canyon

Man’s Temple and the Forgotten Canyon

 

Jury Statement:

The jury values the strategic implications of this proposal in its local scale and global consequences. Taking as its site the Glen Canyon Dam, a global referent for land engineering, the project produces a clear and direct criticism of 20th century forms of energy production and land manipulation. The project, proposing the restoration of the site by demolition, takes into account the animal species affected and displaced throughout the history of the project. The proposal thus navigates between the material, historical, and biologic architectures of the site and the planet.

 

 

 

Honorable Mentions:

 

Demolition Bonds

wOS (A.J.P. Artemel, Swarnabh Ghosh, Lauren McQuistion, Samuel Medina)

 

Demolition Bonds

 

 

Desertion

Alex Fuller and Teddy Planitzer with Shannon Starkey

 

Desertion

 

 

Dustification

Lindsey Petersen

Dustification

 

 

 

Juan Jesus and his Sledgehammer

Scott Claassen, Gabrel Gonzales, Robert Hutchison, Cory Mattheis, Gregory Hicks

 

Juan Jesus and His Sledgehammer

 

 

 

Urban Reefs

Decentralized Design Lab (David Kennedy, Jacob Mans, Benjamin Peek)

 

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