The 2021 AHRA conference will question what ‘region’ and ‘regional’ mean for architectural cultures past and present, and will speculate on the different forms and formulations they might take in the future. This year the AHRA conference is excited to announce a student design competition for provocative and speculative design proposals that reimagine a regional artefact into an architectural proposition.
Undergraduate and postgraduate students are invited to analyze their regional identity and its complexities. You have the opportunity to consider any regional artefact that you may relate to your understanding of ‘region’ – we encourage critical, creative and reflective readings and translations. We accept ‘artefact’ in the broadest sense: it might be man-made or natural…an object, setting, memory, dream, story, poem, drawing, conflict or border. Your response should address four key questions:
- How do you critically define the meaning of ‘region’?
- How is that definition/perspective embodied in a regional artefact?
- How can you deconstruct, translate and reimagine this regional artefact into a spatial environment?
- What new purpose will your reconstructed artefact serve?
Your final design proposition may be abstract or literal and take the form of an occupiable space at the human, building or urban scale. We would like you to be rebellious and challenge the physicality of the constructed meaning of your regional artefact and think creatively about architecture as a tool to rescale / recompose / relocate / reimagine / rewrite its presence and meaning.
Submission Requirements
1 or 2 A1 boards: These should include a visual reply to the four key questions and a 100-200 word written statement describing not only the meaning of region as you conceive it, but also the embodiment of that meaning in your selected artefact and the re-imagined translation of your design proposal.
Prizes
1st Place: £500, 2nd Place: £250, 3rd Place: £100.
The results and the winners will also be exhibited through social media and REGION AHRA 2021 website.
