Architecture begins with curiosity. For Olson Kundig principal Alan Maskin, designing critical and creative spaces starts with how we imagine new worlds together. Drawn to the strange and extraordinary, Alan leads an interdisciplinary team of architects, designers and visual artists on bringing narrative-based projects to life. Based in the Pacific Northwest, he has built a range of inspiring cultural projects around the world.
Blank Space has announced the winners of the sixth annual ‘Fairy Tales’ competition. With submissions from over 65 countries, the award-winning entries explore current events and the creative process through wonderfully crafted short stories and artwork.
The winners were chosen by a jury of more than 20 leading architects, designers and storytellers, including Moshe Safdie, Tatiana Bilbao, Jurgen Mayer, Julia Koerner, Mark Foster Gage and Jane Yolen, among many other distinguished judges.
Check out the winning designs after the break.
Architecture, in all its forms, has the innate ability to trigger our emotions and alter our perceptions. Consequently, a lot of light is currently being shed on the relation between architecture, landscape, and health.
In the 2018 edition of the Blank Space Fairytales Competition, Katie Flaxman from Studio 31 Landscape Architects, wrote a story of a father, Horace, an architect suffering from late-stage dementia and his offspring, Rowan. The fiction describes Horace’s journey in different healthcare institutions and how his presence in a building and landscape properly designed for well-being, improved his psychological and physical health.
Here are some excerpts from Flaxman's fictional story, illustrated by architectural artist Sam Wilson.
Blank Space is thrilled to announce the 2019 Fairy Tales competition in partnership with ArchDaily, Archinect, Bustler, and the AIAS. The winners will be selected by a jury that includes Tatiana Bilbao, Mark Foster Gage, Jürgen Mayer and Moshe Safdie.
Blank Space, in collaboration with The National Building Museum, has announced winners of their fifth annual Fairy Tales competition, unveiled in front of a live audience at the Washington D.C. National Building Museum. The competition saw submissions from 65 countries, with 3 prize winners, a runner-up, and 9 honorable mentions chosen for their exploration of current events and the creative process through well-crafted short stories and artwork. The winners were chosen by a jury of 20 leading architects, including Daniel Libeskind, Bjarke Ingels, and Maria Aiolova.
Over the last 5 years, the Fairy Tales competition has captured the imagination of thousands of participants from around the world - from students and aspiring architects, to multi-national firms and Pritzker prize winners.
Here is why, if you enjoy design and storytelling, you should give it a shot this year.
Over the last four years, the Fairy Tales competition has captured the imagination of designers and architects around the world. Last year's record breaking competition drew over 1,500 participants, making the competition once again the largest annual architecture competition in the world. For its fifth anniversary, Blank Space is proud to partner with the National Building Museum, along with ArchDaily, Archinect, and Bustler.
When you’re used to the grind of architecture school, breaks can hit you like rain on a warm day—cool at first, but terribly annoying soon enough. While the first few days breeze past as you catch-up on lost sleep and binge-watch Game of Thrones, you realize before long that you’re going insane with nothing to absorb all your new-found energy.
This is where architectural competitions come in handy. They provide a constructive outlet while being deeply engrossing, thus keeping you from hopelessly refreshing Youtube to see if Buzzfeed uploaded a new video. Also, the fact that you’re no longer constrained by the direction of your studio-leader or school program enables you to experiment creatively. With diverse international competitions running at any given time, you can take your pick, depending on your individual interests and the amount of time you want to devote. However, the sheer number of available competitions can be deeply confusing as well. Here we shortlist seven of the most prestigious annual architectural competitions open to students:
Yesterday evening, in a ceremony at the National Building Museum in Washington DC, Blank Space announced the winners of their annual Fairy Tales competition. Representing the best the architectural imagination has to offer were 4 winners and 10 honorable mentions, selected by a jury of high-profile judges including Dan Wood, Michel Rojkind, Marion Weiss, and Stefano Boeri, among many more.
“The winning entries in this year’s competition include oblique references to current events, mundane daily activities and human emotions that we all easily relate to—they make visible how we shape space, and in turn, how space shapes us,” said Executive Director of the National Building Museum and jury member Chase W Rynd. “The images and narratives are so wildly outlandish, and yet, so grounded that it seems like we could mistakenly stumble into any of them.”
The winning entry this year went to Mykhailo Ponomarenko, a Ukrainian architect whose sci-fi landscapes and painterly presentation provide the backdrop for a surprisingly relatable tale. Read on to find out more about this Fairy Tale, as well as the remaining 3 winners and 10 honorable mentions.
Blank Space has announced three winners and ten honorable mentions in their third Fairy Tales Competition. This year's contest drew entries from more than 1,500 participants from 67 countries. Everyone from students to academics and notable studios and designers submitted detailed stories and beautiful visuals for their submissions. The winners were chosen by an interdisciplinary jury of distinguished judges including Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of the Serpentine Galleries; Elizabeth Diller, founding partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and ArchDaily’s own Becky Quintal, Executive Editor; and David Basulto, Founder and Editor in Chief.
After the record breaking success of Fairy Tales 2015, with over 1,200 participants from 65 different countries, Blank Space is excited to announce that the third edition of the competition is now open for registration.
The 2015 Fairy Tales competition, hosted by Blank Space, has drawn to a close with four winners and 11 honorable mentions emerging victorious. Now in its second year, the competition attracted over 1,200 entries from 65 countries and challenged participants in a number of fields to design architectural projects inspired and accompanied by fictional stories.
Check out the winning designs after the break.
After the record breaking success of Fairy Tales 2014, with over 300 entries from 50 different countries, Blank Space is excited to announce that the second edition of the competition is now open for registration. The Fairy Tales competition invites architects, designers, writers, artists, engineers, illustrators, students and creatives to submit their own unique architectural fairy tales. The scale, location, and program of the submission is up to each entrant. A successful entry crafts a text narrative, along with 5 images, in the most spectacular way possible.
