Reburbia Design Competition Winners Announced
Inhabitat and Dwell have just announced the winners of the Reburbia Design Competition. The competition, which has been running for the past 6 weeks, challenged architects, designers and concerned citizens to come up with solutions that would address the problems that plague present-day suburbia by envisioning different scenarios for the future.
Proposals tackled foreclosed McMansions, vacant big box stores, strip malls, parking lots and more with design fixes ranging from community agriculture and algae-based biofuels to zeppelin-based transit and pools transformed into water treatment plants. The competition drew over 400 entries from countries all over the world.
Winners after the break.
GRAND PRIZE
The grand prize goes to Frog’s Dream: McMansions Turned into Biofilter Water Treatment Plants, submitted by Calvin Chiu. The design proposed converting abandoned suburban tract homes into wetland areas, using vegetation to filter and clean water in abandoned suburban areas for nearby urban centers. Of this entry, judge Geoff Manaugh, author of BLDGBLOG, said, “I love the trans-species approach, the acceptance of certain economically obvious shifts that are occurring already in many a recently constructed suburb, and the hydrological inventiveness. It’s poetic, not practical – and that’s exactly why this project is positive evidence of how we might really rethink suburbia.”
SECOND PLACE
The second place prize goes to Entrepreneurbia: Rezoning Suburbia for Self-Sustaining Life, submitted by Urban Nature, F&S Design Studio and Silverlion Design. This entry called for reining in sprawl and making suburban communities more vibrant and walkable by transforming uniformly residential neighborhoods into entrepreneurial incubators by changing zoning laws to support small businesses. Of this entry, judge Jill Fehrenbacher, founder of Inhabitat, said, “The idea was one of the few entries in the Reburbia competition that wasn’t really a design proposal at all, but instead a policy proposal — and it was clearly the most practical, cost-effective and energy-efficient proposal submitted to us, and therefore the one which has the biggest potential to effect real change.
THIRD PLACE
The third place prize goes to Big Box Agriculture: A Productive Suburb, submitted by Forrest Fulton. This entry proposed turning big box store parking lots into farms, the interior of the stores into greenhouses and restaurants, and many of the existing structural details into renewable energy generators. Of this entry, judge Eric Corey Freed of OrganicArchitect said, “Flipping the economic flow of agriculture and commerce is a much needed step in the right direction. I love that this entry looks at reuse of existing infrastructure, local farming and methods of growth.”
PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD
Finally, the People’s Choice Award, which was selected through an online voting process that allowed the general public to elect their favorite entry from a list of twenty finalists, was the Urban Sprawl Repair Kit: Repairing the Urban Fabric, submitted by Galina Tahchieva. Capturing over 2300 votes and 188 comments from our passionate online community, this design delineated five building typologies characteristic of suburbia, and corresponding formulas for recreating them in order to promote environmental responsibility and community building.
I can’t believe the jurors. Are to live eaten by nature in the future. is this what they consider sustainability? YUK! I’d rather not be an architect is this is to be my future-
The urban sprawl repair kit was actually the most pertinent and worthwhile project of the bunch.
Geoff Manaugh needs a kick in the pants.
Juan, we have been eating the nature for a long long time ;). I don’t know where do you come from, but i have been to the states more than enough to realize that in the big cities with a lot of suburbs, there is a lack of real nature, everything is so gad damn perfect and it looks like a plastic bottle in the shape of a garden. I don’t know when was the last time you have been out of the big (even the small) city and you saw the pure, “ugly” nature. It’s amazing to see it ;) and it’s not that scary :P. But perhaps it’s just me who love to see the nature every day and feel it as it is. And to see that each day a new architecture project with a very strong connection with the nature is made makes me feel quite happy ;)
Best regards ;)
More people-hate masquerading as architecture
Absolutely Ron [and Joshua] Thank you.
To most of the entrants: Ha Ha, we get it. Mankind [especially of a certain demographic] is evil and you thirst for the apocalypse to reverse the order of the world so nature [good] is triumphant over man [bad, very bad]. Redistribution ; again. Seeing this makes me think GREEN really IS the new RED.
I’m all for sustainability, and yeah, I think most characteristics of suburbia are deplorable, I just can’t get with the fantasy here. I guess I just have no imagination.
So go ahead and keep patting yourselves on the back for how enlightened you are.
Yes Joshua,Ron,and Gee Wally- good points. Dwell magazine and Inhabitat, with such a large main-stream readership, could have done the responsible thing and selected a realistic, useful, economically doable solution-the Sprawl Repair Kit. But the jury (as too often happens) picked the the sexy, provocative and un-doable schemes. Sprawl is a serious problem in need of serious solutions, not cheeky green-wash!
I do think if The Sprawl Repair Kit had been rendered in a more Dwell-like hipster modern look it might have had a chance, a style which seems to be a pre-requisite for publication in Dwell. At least the reader poll chose it as the winner. Way Go readers! Shame on Dwell.
Would love to see 2nd place win and implemented. I live in Suburubia and would love to see 2nd place around. Its a smart solution!
its not implementable-sorry
Where is the water supposed to come from? All the Californian McMansions/suburbias would dry out. It’d be The Hills Have Eyes!!
hhhhold up .if theres water infront of my garage how can i put my hummer in house?
the ‘urban repair kit’ features an old anonymous faux historical box surrounded by new anonymous faux historical boxes. aside from a street relation, and maybe the better daylighting, seems more of the same. new urbanist regurgitation. sorry…nothing new there for an award.
I feel sad when reading all these comments…
Sad for the ignorance of many…
Sad for the lack of sensitivity showed here…
Sad for still some people avoid to think sustainable! (a Hummer?!?!)
The winner project doesn’t present a new solution though… For many years solutions have been DONE (don’t comment “undoable”, please… even the jury said that… I’m chocked!) and built with ecosystems (plants + animals) which clean sewage water to be reused in the houses and prepare and fertilize soils for clean and ecological agriculture (this is called permaculture). The results have been very positive. One example I visited for some years ago is in the island of Koster, in Sweden. I was amazed with what I saw… “Biofilter Water Treatment Plants” and permaculture systems functioning perfectly in a full-sustainable community!
Just search for sustainable communities, inform yourselves and stop being scared about our natural evolution (which mankind is always tryng to jump over!)
And, yes!, we as architects have the big professional responsability to educate others around us (at our work or in our personal lives) for the clean, sustainable solutions for our selfdestructive lifestyle! Stop to just do competitions about it and apply what you know! We don’t need to give prizes to, but to practice the SUSTAINABILITY (economically, ecologically, and sociologically)!
well said, Emilio
1:59 PM Aug 20th
RT @archdaily: Reburbia Design Competition Winners Announced http://bit.ly/2lr022
4:10 PM Aug 20th
RT @archdaily Reburbia Design Competition Winners http://bit.ly/2lr022 Good start to a conversation about the future ghetto.
6:49 PM Aug 20th
@inhabitat and @dwell REBURBIA winners featured on @parq http://bit.ly/5XGin and @archdaily http://bit.ly/3AVW7n