Jury: Kazuyo Sejima
Team: Shiuan-Wen Chu and Michel Zaan
Brief
Today our lives are becoming freer from physical restrictions as well as time constraints through the various networks brought about by new media. We can see that everything has become informationalised, speed has become increasingly faster, and various forms of interchange becoming possible. However, architecture does not move. Architecture static aspect could be seen to constantly hinder this movement.
Perhaps one could see possibilities in this non-moving aspect. Rather than being a restriction, could this non-moving aspect not be thought to actually widen the possibilities of architecture? Is it not possible to give birth to a stationary architecture that relies on this environment brought about by the various media, instead of one that ignores this environment?
Concept
Media as means of communication prosthetizes the disadvantages and insufficiency of bodily functions. The static (station) aspect of architecture enables the building and its users to relate to time, to a place and to the building’s immediate environment. Architecture is the mediator between BODY, MIND, and ENVIRONMENT, and the generator of dialogues between them.
Digitization is not just about technology; it involves cultural reorganization. Our bodies will always have sufficient evolutionary disadvantages to make architecture necessary. There will always be stations to support communication and/or bodily functions and to tell you where you are in space and time. Architecture s stationary aspect can transform the disappearing barriers into boundaries and therefore relate BODY and MIND to the immediate ENVIRONMENT.
