2021 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers
Theme: HOUSEKEEPING
BOARD_00
The architect is the housekeeper of the city. As a housekeeper, the architect doesn't just solve problems. They also create hope and desire.
In isolation, the architect designs fantasies of their imagination to build a playhouse full of possibilities within the city. This playhouse is free of all gravitational forces. Therefore, it is suspended in a timeless place, awaiting an audience willing to accept it without reservations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created such a condition—one in which the architect needs to assemble fantasies for a forgotten audience, our children.
This portfolio expands one playhouse, seen through a child's eyes looking outward from its windows, designed to reveal a city full of wild architectural characters. The playhouse's four elevations have been color-coded (Orange, Blue, Yellow & Pink) to specify the architectural characters with children's names. Orange facades are MISFITS, Blue is DINGBATS, Yellow is BLOWUPS, and Pink are DOODADS. As the series of MISFITS, DINGBATS, BLOWUPS, and DOODADS are sequentially revealed through eleven sets of windows, the children rediscover the city, and, just as importantly, the architect rediscovers their inner child. This discovery is an unexpected gift in the pandemic's suspended time, one ready to be unpackaged for all ages.
The parade of these untamed architectural characters wandering throughout the city is not a carnival; it's a time machine! This time machine moves forward, backward, and ahead. Once again, it is a means of housekeeping that the architects must tend to for the city's current and future generations. This portfolio reveals the architect as a mindful housekeeper of the city by allowing the visions seen from the playhouse to fuel all future constructed projects.
‘The city has forsaken its identity. It has become an onlooker instead of a participant, an isolated soul amidst millions of isolated souls. But children withdraw from this paradox. They discover its identity against all odds.’
BOARD_01
The City is a House and the House is a City.
If the child rediscovers the City, the City will rediscover the child – it will rediscover us.
BOARD_02
Four playhouse facades embody both repetition and non-standardization.
These two elements embrace the contrast required to teach the lessons of an
architecture of
seemingly theatrical variations.
Lessons, if learned early, will not fade with time.
The productions the playhouse run are open to all ages, races, and genders.
BOARD_03
The MISFITS are the first generation of architectural follies designed during the pandemic.
Hugging the ground plane closely, they create a series of modern-day primitive huts.
The MISFITS surface patterns become a garden and reflect the artificial landscape in which they have settled.
A series of floating aviaries also provide shelter and act as temporary weigh stations for pixies.
BOARD_04
The MISFITS slowly migrate beyond the boundaries of the garden in search of permanent sites within the city.
In doing so, they highlight the extreme monochromatic state of architecture within the metropolis.
The colorful and playful architecture of the MISFITS are a symbol to all the citizens that buildings should directly reflect the diversity of its inhabitants.
BOARD_05
The urbanism of MISFITS is unruly and random.
This unpredictability produces an appeal that attracts designers near and far.
As designers study the MISFITS architectural behaviors, it becomes clear they are a tribe with an unbreakable code.
The pixies offer their assistance and translate the code.
Its meaning is simple, yet powerful.
The MISFITS speak the vernacular of compassion for individuals per freedom of expression.
BOARD_06
The DINGBATS try to hide in plain sight within the city.
Attaching themselves to existing structures, they spotlight the condition of new versus old.
Over time the DINGBATS accumulate and form towers as well unto themselves.
The pixies frequent the inhabitants of the towers, but only children can hear their wishes.
The unspoken wishes of strangers for an architecture of harmony.
BOARD_07
The desire for harmony is made concrete through the establishment of DINGBATS Housing.
The DINGBATS Housing displays nested conditions of volumes inside of volumes.
These nested volumes of forms represent the unity of multi-generations living and working from home.
As the effects of the pandemic rage on, isolation produces conditions in which DINGBATS Housing grows exponentially.
As seasons pass, the pixies intervene and MISFITS are seen emerging from clusters of DINGBATS Housing as a symbol of hope.
BOARD_08
The BLOWUPS visually express a hybrid combination of emperhal and unnatural architectures.
The apparent buoyancy of the BLOWUPS is counterbalanced by tubular ballast.
The tubular ballast is also transformed by necessity for the unnatural landscape acting as topiary rooms the scale of buildings.
The pixies dwell inside the jumbo topiary rooms and welcome all visitors into striated experiential environments.
The elevational viewpoint of the BLOWUPS acts out an alphabet for children teaching of changes in the pandemic globally.
BOARD_09
Oblique projections of the BLOWUPS divulge the interior courtyards for public gatherings.
The courtyards double as educational classrooms for all citizens.
The perimeter of the BLOWUPS courtyards allows for panoramic viewing platforms for children to survey the silent city in a predicament.
The pixies scripture preaches of a dormant city that later blossoms into a bountiful spring.
The BLOWUPS storage of rainwater ballast will irrigate the city’s park to signal the arrival of the long-awaited season.
BOARD_10
A second generation of BLOWUPS are spawned as the spring blossoms fully.
This cohort camouflages itself uniquely into campuses of uplifted structures.
The density of this set of BLOWUPS resembles an orchard planted to integrate into the existing fabric of the city grid.
The amalgamation of this process is facilitated by the pixies in daylight, as their shadows appear ethereal.
BOARD_11
DOODADS are a specific species of architecture only assembled in the aftermath of calamity.
They are rare and precious creatures, easily identified by their golden coronets.
The DOODADS flourish in landscapes paired with blushing topiary.
The inhabitants of the city thought the DOODADS had gone extinct during the pandemic.
The germination of such a breed of architecture is one of the pixies greatest powers.
BOARD_12
The hypnagogic patterns the DOODADS bouquets produce elevate the fatigue of the global catastrophe.
The DOODADS overrun the city parks in wild and unpredictable field conditions.
Celebratory family and friends gather in these fields to reconnect.
The DOODADS symbolize a new beginning, one with a message of clarity from the pixies.
This type of lucidity and enthusiasm for DOODADS become more contagious than the virus.
BOARD_13
The DOODADS begin to cross pollinate with other architectures.
Children return to classrooms drawing DOODADS in notebooks.
Teachers extend the myth of pixies.
Normalcy once yearned for has had a metamorphosis.
BOARD_14
Utopia has historically always positioned itself on an island.
The children on this island have once again proven this to be so in the times of a pandemic.
All the untamed architectural characters have been set free.
Roaming the city, MISFITS, DINGBATS, BLOWUPS & DOODADS represent diversity of forms.
The diversity of forms directly mirrors the diversity of the citizens of the city.
This architectural strategy empowers the idea of citizen architects.
These citizens architects are now the housekeepers of the city.
Investing in the imaginations of children during a crisis will pay dividends in perpetuity.
Theme: HOUSEKEEPING
BOARD_00
The architect is the housekeeper of the city. As a housekeeper, the architect doesn't just solve problems. They also create hope and desire.
In isolation, the architect designs fantasies of their imagination to build a playhouse full of possibilities within the city. This playhouse is free of all gravitational forces. Therefore, it is suspended in a timeless place, awaiting an audience willing to accept it without reservations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created such a condition—one in which the architect needs to assemble fantasies for a forgotten audience, our children.
This portfolio expands one playhouse, seen through a child's eyes looking outward from its windows, designed to reveal a city full of wild architectural characters. The playhouse's four elevations have been color-coded (Orange, Blue, Yellow & Pink) to specify the architectural characters with children's names. Orange facades are MISFITS, Blue is DINGBATS, Yellow is BLOWUPS, and Pink are DOODADS. As the series of MISFITS, DINGBATS, BLOWUPS, and DOODADS are sequentially revealed through eleven sets of windows, the children rediscover the city, and, just as importantly, the architect rediscovers their inner child. This discovery is an unexpected gift in the pandemic's suspended time, one ready to be unpackaged for all ages.
The parade of these untamed architectural characters wandering throughout the city is not a carnival; it's a time machine! This time machine moves forward, backward, and ahead. Once again, it is a means of housekeeping that the architects must tend to for the city's current and future generations. This portfolio reveals the architect as a mindful housekeeper of the city by allowing the visions seen from the playhouse to fuel all future constructed projects.
‘The city has forsaken its identity. It has become an onlooker instead of a participant, an isolated soul amidst millions of isolated souls. But children withdraw from this paradox. They discover its identity against all odds.’
BOARD_01
The City is a House and the House is a City.
If the child rediscovers the City, the City will rediscover the child – it will rediscover us.
BOARD_02
Four playhouse facades embody both repetition and non-standardization.
These two elements embrace the contrast required to teach the lessons of an
architecture of
seemingly theatrical variations.
Lessons, if learned early, will not fade with time.
The productions the playhouse run are open to all ages, races, and genders.
BOARD_03
The MISFITS are the first generation of architectural follies designed during the pandemic.
Hugging the ground plane closely, they create a series of modern-day primitive huts.
The MISFITS surface patterns become a garden and reflect the artificial landscape in which they have settled.
A series of floating aviaries also provide shelter and act as temporary weigh stations for pixies.
BOARD_04
The MISFITS slowly migrate beyond the boundaries of the garden in search of permanent sites within the city.
In doing so, they highlight the extreme monochromatic state of architecture within the metropolis.
The colorful and playful architecture of the MISFITS are a symbol to all the citizens that buildings should directly reflect the diversity of its inhabitants.
BOARD_05
The urbanism of MISFITS is unruly and random.
This unpredictability produces an appeal that attracts designers near and far.
As designers study the MISFITS architectural behaviors, it becomes clear they are a tribe with an unbreakable code.
The pixies offer their assistance and translate the code.
Its meaning is simple, yet powerful.
The MISFITS speak the vernacular of compassion for individuals per freedom of expression.
BOARD_06
The DINGBATS try to hide in plain sight within the city.
Attaching themselves to existing structures, they spotlight the condition of new versus old.
Over time the DINGBATS accumulate and form towers as well unto themselves.
The pixies frequent the inhabitants of the towers, but only children can hear their wishes.
The unspoken wishes of strangers for an architecture of harmony.
BOARD_07
The desire for harmony is made concrete through the establishment of DINGBATS Housing.
The DINGBATS Housing displays nested conditions of volumes inside of volumes.
These nested volumes of forms represent the unity of multi-generations living and working from home.
As the effects of the pandemic rage on, isolation produces conditions in which DINGBATS Housing grows exponentially.
As seasons pass, the pixies intervene and MISFITS are seen emerging from clusters of DINGBATS Housing as a symbol of hope.
BOARD_08
The BLOWUPS visually express a hybrid combination of emperhal and unnatural architectures.
The apparent buoyancy of the BLOWUPS is counterbalanced by tubular ballast.
The tubular ballast is also transformed by necessity for the unnatural landscape acting as topiary rooms the scale of buildings.
The pixies dwell inside the jumbo topiary rooms and welcome all visitors into striated experiential environments.
The elevational viewpoint of the BLOWUPS acts out an alphabet for children teaching of changes in the pandemic globally.
BOARD_09
Oblique projections of the BLOWUPS divulge the interior courtyards for public gatherings.
The courtyards double as educational classrooms for all citizens.
The perimeter of the BLOWUPS courtyards allows for panoramic viewing platforms for children to survey the silent city in a predicament.
The pixies scripture preaches of a dormant city that later blossoms into a bountiful spring.
The BLOWUPS storage of rainwater ballast will irrigate the city’s park to signal the arrival of the long-awaited season.
BOARD_10
A second generation of BLOWUPS are spawned as the spring blossoms fully.
This cohort camouflages itself uniquely into campuses of uplifted structures.
The density of this set of BLOWUPS resembles an orchard planted to integrate into the existing fabric of the city grid.
The amalgamation of this process is facilitated by the pixies in daylight, as their shadows appear ethereal.
BOARD_11
DOODADS are a specific species of architecture only assembled in the aftermath of calamity.
They are rare and precious creatures, easily identified by their golden coronets.
The DOODADS flourish in landscapes paired with blushing topiary.
The inhabitants of the city thought the DOODADS had gone extinct during the pandemic.
The germination of such a breed of architecture is one of the pixies greatest powers.
BOARD_12
The hypnagogic patterns the DOODADS bouquets produce elevate the fatigue of the global catastrophe.
The DOODADS overrun the city parks in wild and unpredictable field conditions.
Celebratory family and friends gather in these fields to reconnect.
The DOODADS symbolize a new beginning, one with a message of clarity from the pixies.
This type of lucidity and enthusiasm for DOODADS become more contagious than the virus.
BOARD_13
The DOODADS begin to cross pollinate with other architectures.
Children return to classrooms drawing DOODADS in notebooks.
Teachers extend the myth of pixies.
Normalcy once yearned for has had a metamorphosis.
BOARD_14
Utopia has historically always positioned itself on an island.
The children on this island have once again proven this to be so in the times of a pandemic.
All the untamed architectural characters have been set free.
Roaming the city, MISFITS, DINGBATS, BLOWUPS & DOODADS represent diversity of forms.
The diversity of forms directly mirrors the diversity of the citizens of the city.
This architectural strategy empowers the idea of citizen architects.
These citizens architects are now the housekeepers of the city.
Investing in the imaginations of children during a crisis will pay dividends in perpetuity.
Location: New York, NY
Surjan - design scientist
S. H. F. Surjan - project architect
Luca Surjan - creative director
Surjan - design scientist
S. H. F. Surjan - project architect
Luca Surjan - creative director