Introduction

In September 2007, AEEA affiliated schools of architecture began work on yet another international student competition aimed at mapping out the challenges of current practice. 230 entries for the competition were the rich harvest of autumn 2008, among which schools from Brazil, Chile, Iran, India, China, Singapore and New Zealand, as well as schools from Europe and North America, were represented in what proved to be a truly international event.

The theme of the competition was vast and open, an important part of the competitors' contribution - as proved be the criteria the jury forwarded - being precisely the interpretation of its complexity. The present, it seems, enjoys less attention than other times that architecture has traditionally related to. An important part of our discipline has traditionally been forward-looking, while history has (not always, but) rightfully enjoyed a particular place in this evolution. The competition brief invited students to reflect upon the particular relationship that architecture has always enjoyed with time, while focusing on the challenges that the present has to offer. In this way, the brief also suggested that dwelling in ideal times should not overshadow the current issues involving architectural practice, that neither nostalgia, nor the architecture of anticipation can constitute answers to problems that require an immediate position. As in contemporary practice itself, the question regarding the relationship of a project developed in the present to the past (be it past models, the history of the site, etc.) and the future (anticipating evolution, flexibility, sustainability, etc.) is a loaded one. The few questions of today's architecture that the organizers of the competition suggested (its traditional link to the city, its relationship with technology, its survival in a consumer-oriented market and society, public space and the common good) deliberately broadened the spectre of the competition brief.

In this sense, 'architectural quality' was only the last of four criteria in the judgement of the entries, as if it could always be a result of the other three:

• Pertinence in problem identification/accurate topic selection and approach throughout the project
• Relevance of problem/topic in the focused and enlarged context
• Capacity for clearly stating intentions and proposals
• Architectural quality of the proposal

The process of selection was done in two phases - one within each school participating in the competition, and the other by an international selected jury (see related material - the jury report, the award-winning entries, etc. at http://www.iaim.ro/en/aeea2008/.

As a whole, the entries mapped out the confident ]present[ of architectural education, the diverse approach to the issues of today, the manifold interpretation of architecture's challenges, and also - more importantly - the vast horizon of its future expectations.


The award-winning projects

• First Prize: Landscape Synergies
Aisling O'Caroll,Melissa Tovar, University of Waterloo, Canada

The suggestive title of the project expresses a concept of architecture understood as a continual process of development that lengthens its original lifespan. For their case study - the town of Gary, Indiana - the authors devise a three-directional study that intersects synergetically on the idea of architectural development through the redesigning of infrastructure.

In the words of Professor Luis Conceicao, the project is about permanence and change in the territory and about conceiving its possible adaptable infrastructure which is to say the continuity of its existence.

To illustrate this idea, a physically and socially deteriorated urban fabric was chosen - the old steel factory; a threefold rehabilitation programme was devised, one that targeted precisely the aspects that formerly constituted the biggest environmental issues. By way of a productive landscape - natural means of soil treatment through planting of particular species - lost surfaces can be detoxified and reintegrated in the town's daily use. The steps taken in the present lay the foundation of a bridge towards the future use of these areas by cultivating them and providing the optimal direction for their development.


• Second Prize: Re: ]present[
Sonia Jou-ya Huang, Kevin Pang-Hsin Wang, University of Auckland, New Zealand

The project focuses on two islands in New Zealand. The key issue discussed in relation with the architectural ]present[ is its relationship with time. It is a project that speaks about the changes that any work of architecture entails.

The authors present a space inscribed in an unstable environment, in a shifting landscape: an island that can be engulfed by waters, thus challenging the idea of permanence. At the very opposite of a monument whose significance is linked to its perennial presence in a place, the space in question is freed of any preconceived meanings, but acquires depth through the events that it hosts and the people that take part in them. It is an architecture that doesn't bring about further changes, but engages change on a direct and different level: it is a space that welcomes any activities regardless of its original, intermediate or past function.

The essence of the project is beautifully explained by Professor Kit Allsopp: This proposal is the most abstract and poetic but nonetheless engages most strongly with its dreamlike site. The installations that appear and disappear with the tides reinforce the idea (or phenomenon) of the passage of time, the incessant flow from past to present and into the future. The constructions themselves do not change, so perhaps they are a metaphor for an architecture which does not change, but can and will absorb our constant shifting and shuffling about.We, in effect, are the sea coming and going with the tide.


• Second Prize: 23 - Evidad
Davide Castoro, Maria Vittoria Cardinale, Politecnico di MIlano, Italy

The authors chose a very direct presentation of the project, one without any written explanations and only supported by top views. As Professor Leen van Duin of the jury commented, the project offers strong image, based in the logic of architecture. The project builds a bridge between forms of the past and possible forms that can stand in the future, both in typology as well as morphological terms. The design is an accurate intervention: it is bright, clear and promising, presenting architecture as an autonomous discipline, far away from hypes, cult and business art (media). The project strives towards an absolute architecture, which is special in a period in which the meaning of architecture is blurring or even fades away. In this way, the approach of the project also generated questions regarding the historical identity of the discipline of architecture, as art and science of building, and offers an interesting interpretation of the competition's title.


• Third Prize: The City, the Fortress Wall and Residence
Daedo Kim, Jitaek Lim, Hanyang University, Ansan, Korea

The project presents a solution for the rehabilitation and extension of a residential district within the historical area of Seoul, Kwangee Gate. An indepth analysis of the site conditions leads to the evaluation of dwelling needs within the historical area circumscribed by a fortification wall and its access gate. The result is a contemporary living environment, tailored on today's requirements, but also open to future developments and respectful of the cultural, social and spatial history. At the programming level, this prompted the introduction of a commercial street that acts as a buffer along the northern limit of the area creating, at the same time, a stronger identity for the future neighbourhood. At a formal level, the wall generates an interesting landscape geometry that allows for its greater visibilty and strengthens the presence of this historical element.


• Third Prize: Green-up Bucharest
Vlad Stoica, "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, Romania

The idea of the project consists of a general environmental makeover of the typical Bucharest apartment building. The author advocates a reinstauration of green spaces and responsible environmental design in an age of crisis of natural resources. Double-skin facades, roof-top gardens and careful redesigning of the ground areas are the solutions for a radical improvement of the quality of life by way of better insulation, lower gas emissions, the reduction of the use of fossil fuel and making the most of renewable energy solutions, etc. The entire operation develops an esthetical edge grounded in the mentioned environmental solutions.

The jury also awarded 7 mentions

• Andrei Nicolae Bisceanu, UAUIM, Bucharest, Romania,
• Maciej Siuda, Wroslaw University of Technology, Poland,
• Razvan Enescu, UAUIM, Bucharest, Romania,
• Ji Hyung Kim, Dong Won Kim, Joo Hyoung, LEE Hong Kong University, Korea,
• Kok Fong Liew, National University Singapore, Singapore,
• George Gaventuc, Cluj Technical University, Romania,
• Hana Michalkova, Technical University, Dresden, Germany

- and nominated 10 other entries. The entries submitted ranged from actual interventions in existing urban fabric, to addressing the social issues of today's society, questions of political and historical identity of our cities, and their environmental future.


Events surrounding the competition
The occasion of the international student competition ]PRESENT[ - Architecture's Challenge led to the organization of a series of events filling what was to become an architectural week from 22 to 28 November 2008. In this, AEEA and the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest (UAUIM) enjoyed the gracious support of the Lafarge Group, Romania. The tone was set at the opening of the exhibition of the top entries in the competition, and the award-giving ceremony on 24 November. However, in the days to follow, an entire series of conferences and debates brought architecture to the centre of contemporary society.

After the press conference on 25 November, attention was focused on the round table entitled Micro-landscape, moderated by historian Adrian Majuru (coordinator of the Dr. Nicolae Minovici Folk Art Museum and one of the initiators behind the founding of the Museum of Urban Anthropology). It was a debate on the gestures, preoccupations, projections and momentary fulfilments, questions and answers that each generation reiterates in the narrow space of family life. All these elements are at the heart of an ever-changing micro-landscape that defines human nature, influenced by what is apparently a similar pattern of accessories that primarily define one's comfort and safety.

The first of four conferences on Brazilian urbanism by Professor Kay Intaguire, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal University of Parana, Curitiba, took place on 26 November. The author began by a detailed presentation of colonial Brazil, and its three centuries of administrative architecture. Subsequent conferences focused on dwelling and living in Brazil, religious architecture - noted for its representative nature - and were followed by a presentation of the grands ensembles of Brazilian towns.

The series of events continued with a debate entitled Citadel morning-present as architecture challenge, moderated by three staff members of the "Ion Mincu" University: philosopher Stefan Vianu, Prof. Arch. Augustin Ioan and Lect. Arch. Françoise Pamfil. The topic of the present was considered from a philosophical angle as insufficient presence, and as the opposite of absence. The debate followed on present critical issues such as public space, or the social aspects of architecture, both in need of being rediscovered by architectural culture. In conclusion, Augustin Ioan considered architecture's right to self-effacement when sometimes not building, the refusal to build can be a solution.

The last day, 28 November, hosted yet another round table moderated by Adrian Majuru, of the Bucharest History Museum: Our faces reflected city. Among the invited guests were anthropologist Antoine Heermeryck, lecturer at the "Spiru Haret" University, Bucharest, Dan Puric, actor and theatre director, psychiatrist Sorin Riga of the "Alexandru Obregia" Neuropsychiatry Hospital, Bucharest, Prof. Arch. Florin Biciuc and Prof. Arch. Rodica Maria Eftenie from the "Ion Mincu" University. The topics that the participants addressed were how the city alters one's behaviour and the representativity of public space.

The exhibition of the projects itself was on display at the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest and ran through January, giving not only professionals, but also interested parties the opportunity to enjoy the diversity of the projects' approach, their resourcefulness and originality.