Investigating “architecture that reacts” in the 2016 Laka Competition — the winning entries

The Laka Competition recently wrapped up another successful edition for 2016. Established last year by the Laka arts initiative, the competition's “Architecture that Reacts” theme intends to spark interest in the investigation of adaptive socially engaged architecture that address pressing issues like lack of public spaces, post-war societies, and urban overpopulation.

The 2016 edition attracted more competition, with 255 participants representing 40 countries all vying to win big. Out of 127 projects, the jury — which included Julien de Smedt, Tobias Wallisser of LAVA, Nathalie de Vries of MVRDV, and more — selected three prize winners and 10 honorable mentions. 

Scroll further down to see this year's winning entries.

1ST PLACE: “Snapping Facade” by Jin Young Song (Architect and Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, University at Buffalo, State University of New York); Jongmin Shim (Assistant Professor, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York) | USA

Project summary: “The Snapping Facade touches a widespread contemporary problem of heat gain/loss, adequate sunlight provision as well as an insufficiency of aesthetically pleasing solutions to it. As the designers summarize it, ‘Snapping Facade explores a sustainable building envelope design strategy that utilizes elastic instability to create dynamic motion at the building envelope.’ The artifact is not only very clever in its simplicity, reactive to the current need, but also visually appealing and being a small scale design it is able to influence the large scale in a low-cost manner. The Judges were unanimously impressed with the project.”

2ND PLACE: “Suburban Swell” by Ryan Clement, Eric Dell’Orco | USA 

Project summary: “‘Suburban Swell reacts to fears of density by using the lifestyle of the suburbs as a framework for a new vertical morphology of density that embraces light, community, land ownership, individuality, and the American dream. Suburban Swell is based on the form of the cul-de-sac, an urban form that is ubiquitous in American suburbs.,’ according to the project authors. ‘YES! Let’s densify and not in a bad way but in a great way, let's combine the density of Manhattan with the comfortable life of the American Suburb!’, commented architect Nathalie de Vries (MVRDV) on the concept.”

3RD PLACE: “URBAN OASIS / Synergetic, living prototypes” by Markus Jeschaunig (Artist, Architect / Agency in the Biosphere) | Austria

Project summary: “The URBAN OASIS is a climate-change oriented installation, ‘Oasis No. 8’, taking place from September 2015 till the end of 2016. The aim of this initiative is to raise awareness by bringing real plants, that is a banana palm, to a place where they could not exist naturally. The designers claim that ‘Synergetic urbanism is an answer on the challenges of climate change’ and we do agree! Competition judge architect Qun Dang (MAD Architects) mentioned that a big value of this design is having nature influence the existing environment in different corners of the city.”

Don't forget about the honorable mention entries in the gallery below!

The 2016 jury: Tobias Wallisser – LAVA Laboratory For Visionary Architecture, Julien De Smedt – JDS Architects, Peter Kuczia, Ana Maria Gutierrez –Fundación Organizmo, Arturo Vittori – Architecture and Vision, Nathalie de Vries - MVRDV, Qun Dang – MAD Architects

All images courtesy of Laka Competitition.