Winning ideas announced for the Hormuz Bridge International Competition

The results are out for the Gulf Architecture Biennial's Hormuz Bridge International Competition. The open ideas competition invited entrants to propose designs for a bridge or other connective structure to link both sides of the Hormuz Strait in the Persian Gulf.

Three winners and four honorable mentions were awarded.  Eighteen additional entries will be included in the first volume of Gulf Architecture Biennial and publically displayed.

Have a look at the winning proposals below.

First Prize: XXXXXX02 or The Frozen Leviathan
By Matteo Mannini

Project description: "The legend of the Hormuz Route have been puzzling generations of archaeologists and historians. Poems and chronicles portray it as the “dark” double of the Silk road, channeling the trade of a very specific commodity—workforce—from the deepest recesses of Africa and the central Asiatic uplands towards the strategic outpost of Hormuz. Tales and stories stress the violence through which far regions were plundered, and their young men and women made slaves and traded."

"Yet, stories from the Slave road were not only characterised by their dark tones. Rather, stories of heroism and resistance, escapes and piracy, desertion and rebellion fuelled the legend of the Hormuz Road. While the Silk Road represented the well-honed order of the Asian Empires, and their capillary territorial control through a network of trade infrastructure made of roads, caravanserais and gardens for water management, the Hormuz Road seemed to nurture manifold forms of life which disrupting such an order: escaped slaves, prostitutes, pirates, charlatans, healers, prophets, venture captains, profiteers and bandits."

"In the subsequent centuries the land connection between Persia and Arabia lost progressively its importance, and the Hormuz Strait gained prominence as the gate for maritime commerce in the Persian Gulf, especially since the discovery of oil reservoirs since the 1930. Today’s situation is well known: 20 percent of world’s oil transits from the Hormuz strait, and 35% of all oil traded by sea, making the area the world’s most strategically contested geopolitical hotspots.

But the perspective of a progressive exhaustion of oil reservoirs in the area and an ever-present threat of escalation of the Middle-Eastern conflicts, threaten the already precarious economic stability of the area. The implementation of a North-South international traffic route would then constitute an occasion for a complete re-configuration of the geopolitical significance of the area, opening new markets and enhancing the resilience trade network across Asia and Africa."

Second Prize:  A CITY FOR THE STRAIT: The Hormuz Federation
By Edourad Champalle

Project description: "The project explores the challenges and opportunities of the Strait not only at the scale of bridge between two land masses, but especially at the scale of the entire region. In the context of a post-oil world, it must transform and become both a hinge point and a node for the entire region. The Strait of Hormuz must exist not as a place of passage but as a physical entity at the center of the region’s large urban areas.

It must be a synthesis, a paradigm of the region before radiating its aura around the world. The project proposes to transform the strait into a major member of a larger regional network of megalopolis. A city shared by all the nations of the Gulf to enhance their political, economical and cultural influence in the world as one united federation of countries, like an exchange hub at the scale of an entire region."

Third Prize: Backbone of Strait of Hormuz
By Chien Bang Wong

Project description: "The proposed bridge is the model of the new economy. The typical function of the bridge is to connect two separate entities into one. Hence, the bridge has to be more than just bridging and connecting people. It must be able to generate revenue, to restrain the dependency on petroleum economy, while increasing political stability."

"There are no definite borders within the Common Zone. The ambition of the common zone is to increase interaction between countries not only physically, but also increasing knowledge exchange between its peoples. It is then through such a Common Zone, we are able to blur the boundaries of political entities, and the social, legal, and cultural jurisdictions, so that the Strait of Hormuz can be protected."

Honorable Mention: Global Security Pipeline
By Nick Axel

Project description: "With the onset of capitalism and its global pursuits, petroleum became unique and acquired a nearly universal sacrality. Despite its pernicious existence, it is perhaps more than anything else the one human element that unites the world. Petroconflict is destined to melancholy for its unanimous libidinal identification. As such, petroleum affords the raw material to radically reconceive the basic notions of global coexistence through the ways risk is projectively dealt with at a planetary scale.  As paradoxical as it may seem, when something acquires a universally sacred value, the only thing that produces risk is protecting it."

Honorable Mention: Jeser El Amwaj
By Dhaval Gadani, Louis Peragallo, Christian Pereda

Project description: "Jeser El Amwaj takes advantage of the site to become an ecological and renewable system. The structure is made up of buoyant tube sections linked by joints which allow flexing in two directions. As waves pass through the section of the bridge, the tubes bend and the movement is converted into electricity via hydraulic power systems inside each joint of the structure. The power generated from the structure is then transmitted to the onshore power grid distribution system or battery stations within the bridge."

Honorable Mention: Rail Reef
By Triple O Studio

Project description: "The waters that surround the coast of Oil bearers in the Gulf currently have immense potential in terms of supporting a rich marine life, boosting oil-economy, educating large numbers about healthy petroleum handling and imagining a tourist powered post-petroleum scenario."

Honorable Mention: Moses Highway
By Andriy Vyshnevskyi, Vitaliy Kozlov, Bogdan Krutsko, Orest Galan

Project description: "The proposal takes into consideration the experience of Moses. Believing in the possibility of human futures, the development of technology, and the creation of a ‘channel’ in the sea, thus restoring the original relationship between drifting continents."

Selected entries for the Gulf Architecture Biennial publication:

1. A City For The Strait: The Hormuz Federation by Edouard Champalle 
2. Omir Project by Luis Filipe Lage Pereira 
3. Hormuz Ring by Adriano Ferrer Escayola
4. Bridging Archology by Maxim D.Nasab 
5. Global Security Pipeline by Nick Axel
6. Fractal Bridge by L&M Arquitectos 
7. The City of All Nations by Reza Afhami
8. Necklace by Huang, Puxi 
9. Megalopolis by Williamson Architects 
10. The Lateral Bridge by Nhu Hoang 
11. Moses Hihgway by Andriy Vyshnevskyi, Vitaliy Kozlov, Bogdan Krutsko, Orest Galan 
12. String of Beads by Elena Latonina 
13. Infinite Loop by Hawin 
14. Hive – Strait of Hormuz Petroleum Purifier by Andrew Lee 
15. The Conference of The Birds by Guilhem Lamour 
16. Jeser El Amwaj by Dhaval Gadani, Louis Peragallo, Christian Pereda 
17. Backbone of Strait of Hormuz by Chien Bang Wong 
18. The Hormuz Bridge by Sebastian Marek Palczynski 
19. Rail Reef by Triple O Studio 
20. The Route of Light and Wisdom by Robbert Jan Van Deer Veen, Machiel Hopman March 
21. Lampda by Thitit Chuasomboon, Tawatchai Choktaweechock 
22. The Strip of Hormuz by Andrea Alberto Dutto 
23. The Remarkable Tale of The Oasis of Peace In The Strait of Hormuz by Bradley Sliva, Gabriel Allen, Assan Conteh  24. Terminus Vacuum by Ivan Parati 
25. XXXXXX02 or The Frozen Leviathan by Matteo Mannini

Images via gulfarchitecturebiennial.com