The Aarhus School of Architecture has revealed the winners of their drawing competition, Drawing of the Year 2017, which asked architecture students around the globe to submit their best digital, hand-drawn or hybrid drawings under the theme of “Everyday Utopia.”
More than 230 submissions were evaluated by an esteemed jury of architects, which consisted of Moon Hoon, founder of Moon Hoon Architects; Trine Berthold, associate partner at schmidt hammer lassen; and Torben Nielsen, professor at Aarhus School of Architecture.
The jury was impressed by the “overwhelming burst of creativity and clever concepts demonstrated in the drawings,” calling out the high level of craft and experimental approaches to drawing.
Three winners were selected:
First Prize
The One Day Unit / Charles Weinberg and Shai Ben Ami, Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design
Drawing Description:
29 globes organized in a grid depict the numerous possibilities of organizing buildings, animals, and people that create our life and surroundings. Everyday experiences are composed into everyday utopia. The drawing is well composed and works in different scales - from a distance and close up, where the rich details can be explored. Playful and artistic it connects content, message, and illustration into a strong, beautiful drawing. It is open-minded and open-ended. We imagine that the two people on the final globe only went to sleep to wake to continue the story.
Jury Comments:
"The drawing is well composed and works in different scales – from a distance to close up where the rich details can be explored. Playful and artistic the drawing connects content, message, and illustration into a strong, beautiful drawing. It is open-minded and open-ended."
Second Prize
Amazonia / Richard Morrison, University of Westminster
Drawing Description:
The axonometric drawing is created digitally and creates a coherent and consistent image of our world organized for shopping and distribution. Our houses are the same, somewhat traditional, but the section gives us a view of the layers of advanced technique and structures supporting this way of living. The concept is overpowering, putting forward a precise idea, and question. It is simultaneously political, architectural, detailed and explained. It is polemical. Our reliance on Amazon is already a reality, and the drawing of everyday utopia becomes an extension of a future life we somehow already live, but whose price and potential we might not fully recognize.
Jury Comments:
"The concept is overpowering, putting forward a precise idea and question. It is simultaneously political, architectural, detailed and explained. It is polemical. Our reliance on Amazon is already a reality, and the drawing of an everyday utopia becomes an extension of a future life we somehow already live."
Third Prize
Cinderella’s Lost Shoe / Ifigeneia Liangi, The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
Drawing Description:
The drawing is a 3D rendered drawing on historical myths and well-known fairy tales. The collection of odd objects creates a surreal and playful universe. A world that does not exist but which we still recognize - and it invites us to enter and wonder. The drawing itself holds the energy of contradictions. Is it moving? Is it water? It is technically highly skilled and precise and supports the concept. Here the everyday utopia is a quest - removed from society and normality to follow a dream. Just follow the fish.
Jury Comments:
"The drawing itself holds the energy of contradictions. It is technically very skilled and precise and supports the concept. Here, the everyday utopia is a quest – removed from society and normality to follow a dream."
Learn more about the award here.
