Winning proposals from architecture students and professionals explore the potential of workplace environments

The competition organizers at Buildner have announced the winners of its Office Design Challenge competition. Now in its second edition, participants were asked to design projects that "use architecture as a tool to improve a worker’s wellbeing as well as their productivity." Buildner's team added that the challenge was created in response to "envisioning a new normal for the workplace environment post-COVID. The competition brief asked for proposals that can help "workplaces evolve and adapt to help facilitate a combination of in-person and virtual working."

Jury members Julia Murphy (Managing Partner and USA + Canada East Practice Leader SOM), Farid Esmaeil (co-founder of X Architects), Harsha Kotak (founder of Women in Office Design, interior designer) Dr. Juriaan van Meel (co-founder of BriefBuilder), and Kourosh Salehi (MENA Design Director at LWK+Partners) selected three Top Prize winners as well as selecting Buildner's Sustainability Award winner. 

Explore all four projects below.

1st PRIZE WINNER - Blackheath Creative Hub 
By Claudia Takada (Australia)

Jury comments: "Blackheath Creative Hub is a proposal that aims to create a workplace that is ‘tactile, slow, and calming.’ It is innovative in that it integrates community programs with workplace programs to yield a new type of space conducive to creativity. It is sited within an Australian climbing town, chosen as a community integrated with nature where post-covid workers have begun to shift as an ideal environment to ‘work from home.’ The building is designed to be in harmony with its surroundings, a linear structure constructed in rammed earth and open on all sides to its forested environment." Read more here.

2nd Prize Winner & Buildner Student Award - The Cube
By: Fariha Afzal, Wzgi Su Demirci, and Antonella Masonotti of the University of Pecs (Hungary)

Jury Comments: "Inside the Cube investigates the history, evolution and utility of the office cubicle. Designed as a square with a dimension of 2.5 meters, the typical cubicle was meant to hold a single user and isolate them from the common space of the office, providing privacy and some level of quiet. The cubicle also has a tendency to hinder collaboration through its inherent intent to create physical barriers among colleagues, and has thus been largely abandoned in contemporary workplace design. This project dissects the cubicle to understand if the design element might be reworked to provide its intended privacy while also supporting social connectivity and general wellbeing." Read more here.

3rd Prize Winner - Gradient Working - Constructing Matrix for Modernist Office Building 
By Shujian You and Yuxin Hu (United States)

Jury comments: "Gradient Working studies the problems and potentials of open plan floor plates that are a staple of modernist buildings the world over. The project uses the famed Seagram Building in NYC as a case study. Working with the strict orthogonal grid of the existing building, the proposal inserts new elements into the floor plate at a 45 degree angle to yield a series of ‘playful’ spaces that promote the health and well-being of the building's users." Read more here. 

Buildner Sustainability Award - OFF HOME
By Dominik Kremerskothen, Vanesa Riecke, and Jadwiga Slezak of AUF-ARCHITECKTUR + FILM GBR (Germany)

Jury comments: "Off Home is a proposal for a scalable grid-form building featuring a library-like floor of semi private work spaces stacked above an open ground floor intended for collaboration and exchange. The project is located in a popular neighborhood in Berlin and is used as a green ribbon to connect two existing parks." Read more here.