Buildner has announced the results of its competition, the Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial No.5. This competition is held each year to support the universal ban on nuclear weapons. In 2017, on the 75th anniversary of the 1945 bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, which claimed the lives of over 100,000 people, the United Nations adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
In recognition of this treaty, Buildner invites conceptual designs for a memorial to be located on any known decommissioned nuclear weapon testing site. The conceptual memorial is intended to reflect the history and ongoing threat of nuclear weapons, aiming to promote public awareness of nuclear disarmament.
The challenge is intended to bring attention to the history and dangers of nuclear weapons. Participants are tasked with designing a space that commemorates nuclear warfare victims and conveys the need for a nuclear-free future. As a 'silent' competition, submissions are not allowed to include any text, titles, or annotations.
The next edition of this competition, the Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial No. 6, has been launched with an early bird registration deadline of June 12, 2025.
The brief
This competition invites designers to conceive a memorial that meaningfully engages the public with the critical issue of nuclear disarmament. Memorials play a crucial role in capturing history and facilitating collective reflection, shaping how future generations understand and respond to global challenges. The proposed memorial will specifically address the legacy of nuclear warfare, emphasizing the urgency of diplomatic solutions and international solidarity in preventing nuclear conflict.
Design proposals are encouraged to consider the following core principles:
- Vision of Peace: Proposals should embody the aspiration for a world free of nuclear threats, incorporating symbolic or abstract representations that inspire unity and harmony.
- Reflection and Remembrance: Designs must foster a thoughtful and enduring dialogue, offering visitors a contemplative environment where they can reflect upon the consequences of nuclear weaponry.
- Educational Impact: The memorial should provide visitors with accessible insights into the historical realities and ongoing dangers of nuclear arms, actively promoting public knowledge and awareness.
- Emotional Engagement: Successful memorials will create a powerful emotional connection, provoking personal and collective introspection on peace, responsibility, and the human cost of nuclear conflict.
- Sustainable Stewardship: Designs must embrace environmental sustainability, reinforcing the memorial's overarching message of responsible stewardship and enduring peace.
Jury Panel
This year's submissions were reviewed by a distinguished jury panel featuring experts from architecture, urbanism, and the arts:
- Olha Kleytman, founder of Ukraine-based SBM Studio, brings expertise in architecture and urban design, alongside her humanitarian work through the NGO "Through the War."
- Flora Lee, Associate Partner at MAD Architects, has contributed to major international projects including the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
- Peter Newman, a London-based artist, explores humanity's relationship with space and modernity, with exhibitions spanning Trafalgar Square, the Hayward Gallery, and the Guggenheim Museum in Venice.
- Vincent Panhuysen, co-founder of KAAN Architecten, integrates contextual sensitivity into large-scale projects, such as the Netherlands American Cemetery Visitor Center.
- James Whitaker, founder of Whitaker Studio, is an architect known for his widely published Joshua Tree Residence.
- Wu Ziye, co-founder of China's Mix Architecture, has received international acclaim for his studio's exploration of spatial consciousness, materiality, and integration with nature.
Buildner's other ongoing competitions include: the 10th edition of MICROHOME competition, in collaboration with Kingspan and Hapi Homes; the Mujassam Watan Urban Sculpture Challenge aimed at finding innovative sculptures reflecting Saudi Arabia's heritage, modern achievements, and future ambitions; and the Howard Waterfall Retreat competition, which invites architects to propose designs for a multi-generational family retreat at the scenic and historically significant Howard Falls in Pennsylvania, USA. Each of these competitions aims to build the winning designs.
Projects:
First Prize Winner + Buildner Student Award
Project title: Urbs Aeterna
Authors: Alessia Angela Sanchez, Erminia Cirillo and Adele Maria Saita, from Italy
The project presents a memorial using sand and metal to depict a post-apocalyptic vision of what appears to be Rome reduced to an archaeological remnant. The design evokes the destruction and preservation paradox, allowing viewers to observe the site from above or navigate its fractured streets leading to a central void. A ghostly wireframe reconstruction of a vanished temple stands as the focal point, symbolizing loss and memory. The restrained material palette reinforces themes of impermanence and time. While conceptually strong and visually compelling, its cost and environmental impact raise questions. The experience unfolds gradually, inviting contemplation.
Second Prize Winner
Project title: The Rainbow Of Renewal
Authors: Chen Yang, Ruijing Sun and Chao Li, from the United States
The project envisions a memorial for the last nuclear bomb through a landscape intervention that transforms destruction into renewal. A circular water installation generates mist, evoking the image of an explosion while simultaneously creating rainbows, symbolizing hope. The design's ephemeral quality enhances its poetic impact, making it a striking presence on the horizon. The intervention integrates with the natural environment, fostering an evolving atmospheric experience.
3rd Prize Winner + Buildner Student Award
Project title: Projected Destruction
Authors: Marco Moreno Donohoe of Washington University in St. Louis , WUSTL, the United States
This project envisions a memorial set within a cratered landscape. A striking linear structure cuts through the void, acting as both a bridge and a viewing platform, inviting visitors to experience the vastness of destruction. The interplay of light and shadow within the perforated walls creates dynamic spatial effects, offering different perspectives from above and within. The scale and placement evoke a sense of isolation and reflection.
Highlighted Projects
Project title: Mycelial Rebirth: Fungi Restoring Nuclear Wounds
Authors: Shengfeng Gao, Zhuohan Zhou and Shengnan Gao from the United States
This project envisions a memorial landscape where fungi serve as agents of ecological healing in a post-nuclear context. A dense forest setting is activated by a grid of ultraviolet lights that stimulate mycelial growth, enhancing the fungi's capacity to absorb and break down radioactive contaminants. As the soil regenerates, the design allows for gradual ecological succession, beginning with mushrooms and pioneering vegetation. The illuminated ground plane forms a quiet, immersive field that marks both decay and recovery. Over time, the site transforms into a living testament to resilience, where nature's unseen networks remediate and renew.
Project title: Nuclear Living Force
Authors: Luis Manuel Carcamo Cura of company LUIS CARCAMO ARQUITECTOS, from Mexico
This project responds to the atomic age by offering a message of harmony over despair, using the human eye as a central metaphor for awareness and reflection. A series of monumental, petal-like structures rise from a crater-shaped void, recalling both the iris and the bomb site in Santa Fe. Surrounding this core, the Flower of Life geometry guides the masterplan, symbolizing universal patterns and organic regeneration. The design emphasizes nature's resilience, referencing ecosystems like Chernobyl where life has returned unaided. Rather than mourning destruction, the project celebrates life, order, and the potential for collective transformation.
Project title: The Illusion of Choices
Authors: Ruiqi Yao, University of Edinburgh from the United Kingdom
This project explores the illusion of choice within the existential tension between nuclear war and peace. Set inside a vast crater, visitors begin their journey in a monumental spherical chamber, where a singular path ends abruptly, symbolizing unreachable goals and the false promise of nuclear power. Descending into a subterranean network, seven red-lit paths depict ruin and inevitability, while one blue-lit path offers a narrow route toward peace and introspection. The final space contrasts confinement with openness, guiding visitors through mirrored walls toward a hopeful exit. Through spatial transitions and stark lighting contrasts, the project stages a powerful moral journey.
Project title: Möbius Elegy: Red Warning and Green Return
Authors: Daii Shimada, Mai Nakano and Midori Watanabe, from Japan
This project imagines a regenerative forest emerging from the scars of nuclear devastation. Set within a vast desert crater, a radial pattern of multicolored vegetation radiates outward, suggesting seasonal cycles and ecological diversity. The planting strategy appears gradual and deliberate, with craters used as microclimates for reforestation—each acting as a node in a larger ecological system. A lone figure stands before the transformed landscape, underscoring the scale and ambition of the intervention. Through time-lapse-like sequences, the imagery suggests the forest's steady expansion, turning the desert into a sanctuary of life. The memorial becomes a living archive of resilience and renewal.
Project title: Soft Fallout
Authors: Louis Bourdages and Cedric Harvey, from the Université Laval School of Architecture, Canada
This project proposes an immersive memorial defined by a luminous, amorphous structure suspended over a crater. From the outside, the glowing yellow form evokes a captured sun or lingering explosion, radiating both warmth and unease. Inside, visitors enter a soft, undulating landscape of quilted fabric that molds to the human body, allowing for stillness, reflection, or playful interaction. Light filters through the translucent skin, creating a surreal atmosphere suspended between comfort and disquiet. The form's biomorphic geometry contrasts the rationality of war, transforming the site into a sensorial space of pause and presence.
Project title: "Used to be there"
Authors: Hữu Nhân Hoàng, Hoàng Kỳ Lê and Anh Khoa Huỳnh, Vietnam
This project constructs a memorial as a collective reflection on memory, identity, and everyday life disrupted by nuclear war. Set in a radial formation across a barren landscape, semi-transparent glass panels display ghosted historical photographs—scenes of people, architecture, and ordinary moments—layered over the present. Visitors navigate between these life-sized images, encountering echoes of the past embedded in space. The transparent surfaces blend time periods and dissolve boundaries, inviting viewers to see themselves within the continuity of human experience. Rather than focusing on devastation, the project quietly honors what stands to be lost: ordinary lives, familiar places, and shared memories.
Visit the website for the recently launched Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial No. 6, to take part and learn more, before the early bird registration deadline of June 12, 2025.
