Six students from two Polish universities - Wroclaw and Silesian Universities of Technology - have made it to the finals of the Saint-Gobain Architecture Students Contest, which has been organized since 2004. Forming three two-person teams, the Poles will soon fight for the grand prize against other finalists from more than forty countries from around the world. The competition will be held in June in Warsaw, the city for which the participants were looking for innovative and sustainable solutions.
Every year, nearly three thousand young architecture students from more than two hundred universities participate in the international competition organized by Saint-Gobain. For years, the organizers have confronted participants with tasks comparable to those they will face in the future already as professionals. Fortunately, they are not left alone with this challenge - as the formula of the contest assumes support from universities.
Architecture Students Contest is a global and fully professional architecture competition. Students, under the guidance of faculty mentors from their universities, face the kind of task that professional architects would face," explains Michal Ciesielski, chairman of the jury of the national finals of the competition. - As a result, they gain invaluable experience, right away in an international context of the highest possible scope, he adds.
First prize, "Zeroramowy", proj.: Aleksandra Tądel, Magdalena Strauchmann;
Project prepared at the Wrocław University of Technology, supervisor: Dr. Tomasz Głowacki
© Aleksandra Tądel, Magdalena Strauchmann
The task faced by the participants is to revitalize the area indicated by the organizers. This time it fell on Warsaw, or more precisely on a plot of land near the Warszawa Wschodnia railroad station, for which students were to develop designs for the renovation of an old factory on Berka Joselewicza Street and the construction of a commercial dormitory. Importantly, the innovative proposals had to be in line with two important urban visions - a climate-neutral Warsaw by 2050 and the #Warsaw2030 strategy that sets the direction of the city's development.
The competition projects were first evaluated by a national jury (the winners of this stage receive financial awards of PLN 5,000 and passage to the international stage), and then in the global final (the winners receive a prize of €5,000). During the evaluation, as the organizers emphasize, architectural quality, compliance with the development plan and construction details, among others, were taken into account.
Second prize, "Botanic Frame," proj.: Grzegorz Staroń, Grzegorz Środa;
Project prepared at the Silesian University of Technology, supervisor: Dr. Andrzej Duda
© Grzegorz Staroń, Grzegorz Środa
Poland will be represented on the international stage by three teams: the winners of the national stage of the competition - Aleksandra Tądel and Magdalena Strauchmann from Wroclaw University of Technology, who prepared their "Zeroram" project under the supervision of dr. Tomasz Glowacki, the second place winners - Grzegorz Staroń and Grzegorz Środa from the Silesian University of Technology, who prepared their "Botanic Frame" project under the supervision of Dr. Andrzej Duda, and the third prize winners - Aleksandra Stępniowska and Wojciech Bandyk from the Wroclaw University of Technology, who, also under the supervision of Dr. Tomasz Glowacki, developed the "Green House" concept.
The Polish jury also awarded three honorable mentions: in the Sustainable Development category for the project by Paulina Górecka, a student at the Cracow University of Technology, whose competition work was supported by Dr. Wojciech Wicher, a professor at the Cracow University of Technology; in the Design category for the proposal by Roksana Gleizner and Agnieszka Laska from the Wroclaw University of Technology developed under the supervision of Dr. Anna Berbesz, while in the Innovation category for Katarzyna Kowalczyk from the Silesian University of Technology, who prepared her work under the guidance of Dr. Andrzej Duda.
Third prize, "Green House", proj.: Aleksandra Stępniowska, Wojciech Bandyk;
Project prepared at the Wrocław University of Technology, supervisor: Dr. Tomasz Głowacki
© Aleksandra Stępniowska, Wojciech Bandyk
The competition is intended by the organizers to be a space for development for future architects, a good example of which are the winners of the 2019 edition, Anna Barwińska and Joanna Klimasz, now graduates of the Silesian University of Technology. The architects won the international final in Milan and established their own studio, Baza Group, in Dąbrowa Górnicza, and this year were jurors in the national stage of the competition.
You can find all the projects qualified for the international finals of the competition here. The winners of this year's edition will be announced in early June.
