World Architecture Festival announces winner of the 2020 Isolation Transformed Competition

During an eventful week of live talks and presentations, World Architecture Festival announces the Isolation Transformed competition winners. Joined by PechaKucha (storytelling platform), the competition invited designers to think about future environments post-virus. The winning project went to Deny Jones Architekt & Amat Habito for their project, a solution for care homes for the elderly. 

Competition coordinators share the winning project imaginatively tackles "a neglected and even unpromising topic for architecture: the huge rates of deaths from COVID-19 in care home facilities around the world." Inspired by boats and jetties, the project reimagines living areas as prefabricated units made out of timber. 

Deny Jones and Peter Amat Kreft discussed their project during virtually in a live presentation. View more project images and its description below.

Project Description:  This project fully answers the challenge of the competition with a genuine transformation of isolation. It does so by imaginatively tackling a neglected and even unpromising topic for architecture: the huge rates deaths from Covid in care home round the world. Inspiration is taken from the relationship between boats and jetties; living units are prefabricated in timber to generous dimensions deriving from the logistics of transporting them to site. The presentation is elegant and beautifully drawn; and the proposal would make a great place to live with or without Covid. 

To view their video presentation click here.

According to the Programme Director of World Architecture Festival Paul Finch, The presentation is elegant and beautifully drawn; and the proposal would make a great place to live with or without Covid-19.” 

In addition to Peter and Deny's winning project two highly commended and two commended ideas were recognized.

Highly commended: 

‘Architectural Vaccine’ by Pablo Cevallos Cisernos. This entry had an interesting approach to adding vertical green space to dense urban environments as an outlet for minimal dwelling units. 

‘Quarter-mile suburbia’ by Spencer Bauer. This proposal rethinks suburbia considering Covid to create small neighbourhood clusters to enhance interaction and community connection. 

Commended: 

‘From Religion to Rehabilitation’ by Akash Ganguly and Madhavi Sharma. A proposal unique in its specificity around a population and cultural event -- conveyed with evocative renderings -- that uses the pandemic as a catalyst for an architectural intervention to deliver lasting social transformation. 

‘Shibuya Turning Crossing Point’ by Keisuke Tamura and Silvia Rulli. This is a wonderful telling of an extraordinary story – the organic and irresistible growth of an urban transportation behemoth, one of the most densely packed places in the world, and its sudden emptying brought about by the Covid lockdown. 

To learn more about the competition and its winner click here.