Santa Claus gets a residential upgrade in the House of Santa design competition

When it's off-season for Santa Claus, many people would probably imagine that he resides in some sort of cozy cabin up in the North Pole. This past holiday season, the House of Santa design competition invited participants worldwide to envision a new and improved home for the beloved Mr. Claus that will make everyday living and working easier for him in the 21st century.

The esteemed jury selected three prize winners who received a total of $3,200 and 10 honorable mentions. You can have a look at them right below!

(cover image) FIRST PLACE: Hubert Rozewicz, Bartosz Kolodziejczuk and Damian Konieczny (Poland)

Project summary: “The ‘Heart of the Arctic’ imagines rebuilding the living and working area of Mr. Santa Claus and his family on a floating iceberg in the Arctic Circle. The design looks at adapting architecture to face the monumental issues of climate change, rather than ignoring the problem.”

SECOND PLACE: Pei Chi Tsai and Chao Chun Kung (Taiwan)

“The ‘Defence of the Glacier’ imagines Santa’s new house to be built at Danmark Fjord, a place with the thickest ice sheet in Arctic that may soon crack owing to global warming. This house is designed on a high wall that intends to slow down the melting of the glacier and help it recover from recession. The site chosen is near a weather station so as to co-operate with scientists to monitor the glacier and study the effects of climate change on the same.”

THIRD PLACE: Dong Si Wah and Lau Doris Yen Kiu (Hong Kong)

“‘Santa’s Cocoon’ emphasizes on architecture as means for the children visiting Santa Claus to get in touch with nature. The house is designed with a terrace system to reduce its reliance on an artificial heating technique. The spaces inside the Cocoon are connected with each other through various functional areas, making the house a cozy living and working area for the residents and the visitors.”

You can find the Honorable Mention entries in the gallery below.

The jury for the competition featured: Benjamin G. Saxe (Studio Saxe), Peter Pichler (Peter Pichler Architecture), Mark Foster Gage (Mark Foster Gage Architects), and Mikkel Frost (Cebra Architecture).

The full competition results can be found here.