2x8 Exhibition announces its 2021 exhibit design competition winner

The AIA|LA, ARCHITECTURE FOR COMMUNITIES LOS ANGELES (ACLA), and the 2x8 Committee awards this year's winning design to PORO-City by Chieh-Ting Chuang, Martha Kriley, Yushan Men, and Kyoung Eun Park. The project uses milk crates to function as a brick system that "is neither transparent nor solid, housing the exhibition without imposing a hard boundary," shares the design team.

As the official media partner of the Exhibition, Archinect and Bustler will be covering this year's event, projects, and student winners. What makes this particular exhibition design competition unique is its open call to design faculty, however this year the committee opened up the call to designers based in California. The competition's brief asks for designers to "design, build, and install the 2021 2x8 exhibition to showcase up to 40 student projects, distributed into 2 to 10 projects per site (roughly 4-6 sites)."

Following are images and details of the exhibition design.

2x8 Exhibition Designer Winner: PORO-City

Project Description

Packaging is often a means to an end. Some types of packaging are designed for durability and reuse. These qualities often inspire use in ways other than originally intended. With the help of community organizations in LA, exhibition materials will be collected and repurposed for this design. The crates will house the exhibition without imposing a hard boundary. The undulating porous walls will frame the city and create views that will further emphasize the relationship between exhibition and site, while at the same time recalling breeze block walls, an iconic part of the LA landscape. The modularity of the crate allows for flexibility and imagination, and its sturdy construction makes it ideal for reuse. Like community, this material is constantly recombined and reinvented.

The design team explains their plans for the design's "second life" after the Exhibition ends: "We are currently in communication with several community organizations to find a second home for our exhibition materials. We have collectively discussed ideas including shelving for clothes, planters for community gardening, and crates for food distribution."

*Stay tuned for more 2x8 Exhibition news and details on Archinect and Bustler.