“Architectural design as a research platform to explore and discover yet uncharted terrain” – Holcim Awards Jury

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    Project entry 2014 Africa Middle East - Bio-Mimicry: Water research center, Fika Patso Dam, South Africa

    This project explores whether nature and architecture can amalgamate to become a hybrid solution in a vast landscape which has lost its reference to place and time. The transformation of place and time through architecture results in a progressive fusion giving meaning to a certain non-place lacking character and spatial qualities and resulting in an awakened space. This led to the idea of spatial reawakening through the medium of architecture.

The jury greatly appreciated the project’s bold visionary stance. The design proposition – a manifesto in its own right – frames a discourse on possible forms of relationships between the built and natural environments, offering strategies for perceiving architecture as a form of action in a symbiotic rapport with nature, without succumbing to romantic notions of nature. Commended is the understanding of architectural design as a research platform to explore and discover yet uncharted terrain.

Last updated: June 13, 2014 Beirut, Lebanon

The jury greatly appreciated the project’s bold visionary stance. The design proposition – a manifesto in its own right – frames a discourse on possible forms of relationships between the built and natural environments, offering strategies for perceiving architecture as a form of action in a symbiotic rapport with nature, without succumbing to romantic notions of nature. Commended is the understanding of architectural design as a research platform to explore and discover yet uncharted terrain.