Ready for the Island
Isabell Rehm, Julia Endler
Germany
Adaptive reuse is clearly evident in the interesting siting of this self-sustainable project within the silos of an abandon limestone quarry. This should have been enough to generate occupation and use that would be relevant to this particular site and make this an exciting project. Instead, too much program and prescriptive activity are overlaid, turning the proposal into a facility more like a theme park that relies on labelling functional spaces rather than generating atmosphere.
-Sand Helsel

Interesting methodology adapted of taking the concept of a retreat onto an urban level with multiple sensorial experiences being generated. The interstitial spaces and the semantic connections that have been developed with the aid of a strong narrative made the flow of the architectural progression of this project all the more interesting.
-Sidra Khokhar

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Retreat Center «SHI KHAN»
Diana Kanbekova, Alsu Galina
Russia
The author has a strong cultural appreciation of an important mountain landscape. What could have been a wonderful opportunity to develop this into an architectural project through section, embedded into the ground and the community, is unfortunately reduced to a roof outline, on a very conventional functional brief. More emphasis on views and atmospheres would have been a better way to develop the project than working drawings.
-Sand Helsel

A very interesting take on the integration and rejuvenation of culture and history. Well done!
-Sidra Khokhar

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Healing Hill
Zehra Ateş, Rasül Güngör, Emir Enbiya İşler, Esra Elüstü
Turkey
The Healing Hill is a megastructure domed timber roof that sits convincingly in the landscape. Depressions and openings deflect the pure geometry of the timber roof and form more intimate spaces that are well described through atmospheric sections.
-Sand Helsel
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Shangri La
Xinyi Hu, Wang Yuanling, Li Xuanying
China
Shangri-la responds to a conceptualised energy field created by mountains, rivers and caves. However the primal geometry and formalist language of the overall scheme can be seen as divorcing the proposal from the site, almost building a walled encampment. The individual elements of the project work well with refined interiors and sections that are well drawn.
-Sand Helsel
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Journey of Serenity
Gyeong Heejeong, Jo Gayoung, and Park Sunjae
South Korea
The project is buried in the terraces of rice paddies, and despite the program being unnecessarily sequential there is a clear understanding of the occupation of the overall site and the users’ movement through it, which is clearly drawn. The project is well-scale and appropriate. The weakest aspect is at the smaller scale and the ambiance of the built forms. The default seems to produce modernist white boxes with seemingly little consideration of other material or formal solutions.
-Sand Helsel

A good attempt. However, the originality of this scheme is questionable as I would have appreciated the architectural research to have gone into the detailings of the rice paddies and the experiential signifiance they may hold in terms of site context. The translation of a terraced site is nothing out of the ordinary.
-Sidra Khokhar

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Grottoscape-Healing Complex with Nature
Zhewen Wu, Jianpeng Bai, Di Wu
China
There is a lack of connection with the desire to heal and engage with nature with references to Buddhist grottos cut into mountains and the enclosed mega-block dropped into the centre of a Shanghai park with little consideration of the existing context. The program of humans and animals co-mingling in the interior is unbelievable and underdrawn.
-Sand Helsel

A very clever adaptation of the area's biotic environment within the architectural space. A big part of the human experience is linked with the ecosystem around us which is a great thing to see being catered to in this project.
-Sidra Khokhar

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KILYATOPIA
Gökçe Karabulut
Turkey
The focus on walls of various materials – stone and compressed earth – provides textures and atmospheres, and a potentially interesting strategy to engage with the site and the program. Instead of sculpting and retaining the ground as the primary move, the dominant reading of the walls are as party walls between double-storey units. This is a very competent design but it appears more like a resort than a retreat.
-Sand Helsel

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Into the Wild
Jian Liang
U.S.
The elements of earth, fire, water, etc are used quite literally to generate spaces in the project, but do create some interesting atmospheric elements. However the siting strategy in the flood plain of a major river system seems wilful and incoherent, spread out with little sense of scale. One would imagine that levees would assume their form from river flows and not Euclidean geometry, and that one would shelter and the project would contract during floods as opposed to drifting on tenuous floating platforms.
-Sand Helsel

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The Northern Retreat
Karri Paasovaara
Finland
There is a wonderful description of shadow and light in the text about this northern retreat. The author has interesting proposals for reflection of the sky on water and the mass of walls. These should have been the drivers for extraordinary spatial experiences throughout the whole project , but unfortunately they became reduced to a pool room within a very convention plan.
-Sand Helsel

A good attempt at understanding the concept of phenomenology, however, the project lacks innovation across the breadth of such a unique and vast site.
-Sidra Khokhar

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Mind Archeology

Lee seungho, Kwak Min Seok
South Korea
The project’s strategy for dealing with depression is innovative and creative, physically and conceptually embedding the retreat into the ground. An interesting series of diagrams explain the proposed actions on the site, and the program parallels the downward flow of the river. Sadly, this promising project is left as a diagram with little ambiance or materiality.
-Sand Helsel

The site and the concept being proposed are too far apart in terms of their relationship with each other. The overall visual appeal of the project has more potential to be explored in tandem with the natural elements which have been spoken about in the writeup.
-Sidra Khokhar