Giving form to feeling: Winners of the third Museum of Emotions competition

Buildner has shared the results of the third edition of its Museum of Emotions competition. The brief challenged designers to show how architecture can be used as a tool to evoke emotion, resulting in a concept that displays juxtaposed positive and negative emotions in one two-hall design.  

The contest is one of several silent competitions, which asks participants to communicate their ideas using solely imagery and devoid of any text related to the proposal's scale or “cardinal directions.”

Earlier this March, three winners of the competition’s second edition were announced, featuring designs that touched on tropes of light and darkness while eliciting unique spatial distributions. Judges for the third edition included UNStudio Founding Principal Ben van Berkel, HMC Architects Principal James Krueger; ZJJZ Atelier Lead Architect Yu-Ying Tsa, and six others.

Prize winners received a total of €3,000, €1,500, and €500 for their first, second, and third-place selections, respectively. 

1st Prize Winner + Buildner Student Award + Buildner Sustainability Award: The Memorial of the Tree (China)

By Jiaxun Song, Xinyue Dong, Zehong Zhang (South China University of Technology)

Jury summary: "The proposal is one of inversions. Two spaces present mirrored versions of the same forested world: one alive and green, filled with ponds, grass and benches; the second dead and black, with trees upended, and floors barren. These two ‘galleries’ are connected visually by a sort of skylight that allows visitors to view through, to the alternate space. The result is striking, original and powerful in its use of nature as an emotional trigger. A pergola above ground consists of a wooden structure that appears as upside down trees below ground."

2nd Prize Winner: Living Things (Chile)
By Daniel Muñoz Ramirez

Jury summary: "Like the first place winner this project experiments with the emotional impact of nature, which was well received by the jury. The submission presents a weathered building of enormous scale in a bleak landscape. A single central point of entry leads into a hall buttressed by two large rectangular galleries. To the left: a space filled with blackened trees, huge in scale, and topped by a glass ceiling supported by a grid structure, the space dark and haunting. To the right: a dark space still, yet top-lit by a more transparent, circular skylight beneath which a dense rainforest emerges. This second space evokes hope and promise amidst the bleakness."  Read their interview here.

3rd Prize Winner: The Inverse (Malaysia)
By Huei Shyang Lim

Jury summary: "This project stands out for its experimentation with space and perception. Another project of enormous scale, a curvilinear surface stands upright and stretches along the z and x axes like an exponential distribution plot, the surface reaching close to the horizon yet never quite touching. A visitor is meant to feel the impact of scale, as well as the sensations of compaction and stretching. One peers out towards the vertical horizon and up towards the sky, one space of darkness and one of light, and is forced to content with their own smallness amidst such a large and empty built space." Read their interview here.

The next, 4th edition of the Museum of Emotions competition is currently accepting submissions.