This 12 months’s Davidson Prize shortlist contains three conceptual tasks that suggest adapting current buildings with sustainable supplies to sort out local weather change and housing scarcity.
The annual prize, which explores the idea of residence, was launched in 2021 in reminiscence of architectural visualiser Alan Davidson.
Entrants this 12 months had been requested to reply to the theme Rethinking Residence – Adapt and Reuse, reimagining current constructions as properties with using bio-based or sustainable supplies.
Three groups had been shortlisted to progress their designs for a ultimate presentation.
One of many groups was comprised of studios Studio Saar, Landstory, Tales, BAS and Megaphone Artistic, whose mission titled Condominium Retailer aimed to reuse vacant retail areas as properties to reinvent UK cities.
Taking an deserted division retailer in Taunton for example, it aimed to deliver a couple of sense of civic satisfaction and restrict growth sprawl by creating properties with repurposed demolition supplies and domestically grown biomaterials.
Studios OEB Architects, Yaa Initiatives, Nick Bano, Dominic Humphrey and Stuti Bansal sought to revitalise cities constructed within the Nineteen Fifties and 60s of their mission, Harlow Re-New City.
The workforce targeted on native round economies in Harlow New City, self-build strategies and biomaterials to design a manner for related post-war estates to remodel their brownfield websites into housing.
Additionally on the shortlist was Robin Hood Co-Residing Group by studios Alma-nac, Fixed SD, Eric Guibert and Mark Blackwell, which explored how redundant airports might be remodeled into group hubs of their mission.
Utilizing a former airport in Sheffield as its instance, the workforce proposed reusing the construction and decommissioned planes for housing, which might broaden into self-built communities on the airport grounds with re-wilded runways.
This 12 months’s jury panel contains Be First affiliate director Amandeep Singh Kalra, Atelier Ten director Duncan Campbell, Elle Ornament UK design editor Alice Finney, Whole Synergy business lead Miles Mitchell, and Mikhail Riches co-founder Annalie Riches.
Additionally becoming a member of the panel is Alexander Turner, co-founder of Studio Mutt, which was a part of final 12 months’s profitable workforce.
“Whereas the three finalists are numerous of their total approaches and workforce configurations they’re centred across the thought of group, one thing which I consider is important to the house of tomorrow,” mentioned Turner.
“The chosen groups proposed tangible options to coping with the housing disaster towards the backdrop of the local weather emergency,” added Finney.
“I used to be significantly impressed by how all three groups included the progressive use of bio-materials – one thing which the design trade wants to begin doing extra within the drive to a really sustainable future,” Finney mentioned.
Davidson died in 2018, aged 58, from motor neurone illness (MND). Earlier than he handed away, he arrange the Alan Davidson Basis charity to assist help individuals affected by MND and different related neurological circumstances.
Final 12 months’s Davidson Prize was awarded to Studio Mutt and researcher Neighbourhood for the Serving to Arms homeless lodging idea in Liverpool.
In 2022, Charles Holland Architects gained the prize with artist Verity-Jane Keefe and Sound Recommendation founder Joseph Zeal-Henry for inexpensive co-housing leases within the countryside.
The photographs are courtesy of The Davidson Prize.
