Global Contest to Rethink Our Habitat from the Body to the City.
Vicente Guallart, Laia Piferré
The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) calls its 9th Advanced Architecture Contest as a global reflection to rethink human settlements at a time when our natural environments and the human habitats are more clearly intertwined. The planet is immersed in a fast process of urbanization while we are simultaneously facing a serious climate crisis that must be addressed. We look to the model of Biocities, cities that follow the principles of ecological principles in order to promote life and biodiversity, to provide us with potential design solutions. How can we reimagine our cities as Biocities, capable of creating an ecologically attuned and reciprocal relationship with nature? This year’s competition challenges students and professionals from all over the world to propose how to design urban spaces, cities, buildings, objects, or solutions of any scale, directed towards the transition to Biocities. These responses should explore how we might adapt to the changing relations between human and natural systems in a moment of climate crisis. Cities have always reflected the civilizations that built them, and at this critical moment where climate change is transforming our living environment, we must rethink our position of domination in relation to all that surrounds us. To respond to rising concerns of the bursting of planetary boundaries, which regulate the stability and resilience of the earth system as it currently stands, we urge the need to simultaneously look at nature based as well as advanced technological solutions to reimagine resilient cities of the future. The contest encourages participants to propose a design at any scale, anywhere in the world, that reflects different cultural, environmental, economic, or social conditions.
