"Post-Quake Visions" Young Architects Competition Results Announced

First Place / Caterina Spadoni, Valentina Brunetti. Image Courtesy of YAC

Written by James Taylor-Foster
Published on January 20, 2014

The results for the latest Young Architects Competition (YAC), Post-Quake Visions, have been announced. The competition aimed to discover innovative ways to overcome the effects of a seismic catastrophe over a medieval Mediterranean town. Participants were encouraged to rethink and redesign the quake-inflicted gaps left inside ancient urban tissues. With 356 enrolled teams comprising of 808 designers, see the winning results and Gold Mentions after the break.

According to the competition brief, "Italy has been experiencing a delicate situation regarding historical memory preservation, in which such precious heritage is constantly put under harming risk. On one hand both protection and preservation cover a pivotal role; on the other hand national legislation is becoming more and more entangled by complex rules. Inner cities belonging to small-medium Italian municipalities are currently stating a slow and relentless depopulation."

"What if an extraordinary, dramatic or dismal occurrence broke such clockwork? Which are the scenarios that may be disclosed to the eyes of the designer? On the night of the 20th of May 2012 an earthquake shook the middle-northern part of Italy, razing hundreds ancient buildings and transforming many inner cities to abandoned ruins. Where current economical context – widely recognized as a period of “crisis” – makes reconstruction impossible, designers are involved in a fundamental debate: is it possible to think about concrete solutions, capable of overtaking a conception of mere refurbishment, restoration or reinstatement for densely populated environments?"

First Place: Caterina Spadoni & Valentina Brunetti / Italy