How would you design a new island? Check out the winning proposals from the LA+ IMAGINATION ideas competition

Architects, designers, and students who took part in PennDesign's LA+ Journal LA+ IMAGINATION ideas competition put their creativity to the test in envisioning a new imaginary island. The only rule? The island couldn't be larger than 1 square kilometer.

Out of 180 entries from 33 countries, the jury (members listed below) picked five winners and 10 honorable mentions. “The winning entries tell us something about what’s lurking in the unfettered imagination of contemporary design culture: we have monstrous ecological machines, places of melancholy, emergent digital natures, and of course, those old curmudgeons, utopia and dystopia. It’s an amazing archipelago of ideas,” Jury Chair Richard Weller stated.

Check out the winning entries below.

“Coastal Paradox” by Bradley Cantrell (University of Virginia), Fionn Byrne (University of British Columbia) + Emma Mendel (Nelson Byrd Woltz)

“Pla-Kappa” by Tei Carpenter, Arianna Deane + Ashely Kuo (Agency—Agency)

“The Dredge Islands” by Neeraj Bhatia, Cesar Lopez + Jeremy Jacinth (The Open Workshop)

“The Island of Lost Objects” by Jacky Bowring (Lincoln University, NZ)

“United Plastic Nation” by Noel Schardt + Bjoern Muendner (Freischaerler Architects)

Each of the five winners will receive a $2,000 prize and be published in LA+ Journal’s upcoming IMAGINATION issue, along with the honorable mentions.

Jury: James Corner (Field Operations), Marion Weiss (Weiss/Manfredi Architects), Javier Arpa (The Why Factory, Delft), Mathew Gandy (Professor of Geography, Cambridge University), Mark Kingwell (Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto), and Richard Weller (Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania)

You can find out more at LA+ Imagination.