Argentinian wins international architecture photo competition

The winner of this year’s Photo of the Year competition takes on today’s most urgent question, Climate, asking how we as architects in the posthuman can learn from and be inspired by nature’s own constructions.

For the third year in a row, Aarhus School of Architecture is hosting the international architecture photo competition Photo of the Year.

The theme of this year’s competition, Architectural Landscapes, is focused on the interaction of architecture and landscape – or the lack of it. In a time when landscape and nature are undergoing dramatic transformation, we wish to address how architectural and landscape photography can help spark debate and engage in the conversation about how we plan and build in interaction with nature.

The winner was selected amongst 185 entries by a jury consisting of Louise Wolthers, Christina Capetillo, Mikkel Frost, Claudia Carbone and Torben Nielsen. The competition is sponsored by Dinesen and Dreyers Fond.

First prize

The first prize of 5000 euros goes to Pia Fattor (Argentina) from Universidad de Buenos Aires for the “Inhabitable nature” series.

The Jury writes:

The winner of this year’s Photo of the Year competition takes on today’s most urgent question, Climate, asking how we as architects in the posthuman can learn from and be inspired by nature’s own constructions. Wickerwork, network, nest work – the photos capture habitation where nature is the architect.
The Jury awards the proposal for its solid appearance, composition, and successful communication of nature’s tactility and materiality. Mapping intimate yet ephemeral dwellings embedded in nature, the series reveals the creative, but at the same time laborious and considerate process required when building, applying for birds, bees and architects – respecting and considering other species and nature.

Second prize

The second prize of 2000 euros goes to Margo Kim (Russia) from the London Metropolitan University for the “Verticalis” series.

The Jury writes:

This timeless and classic series economizes with its instruments, prioritizes and let nature play the first violin. Taking a step back, the series deliberately places the photographer in the central perspective, in an attempt to control nature and how we define it. The black and white photos are well balanced between motive, scale, the horizontal and the vertical, leaving but a white vanishing point in the architectural landscape.

Third prize

The third prize of 1000 euros goes to Chan Hao Ong (Singapore) from the National University of Singapore for the “Sorry for the Inconvenience” series.

The Jury writes:

In between dream and reality this series plays with and challenges our perception of

the world as a never-ending building site. The Jury would have liked a stronger compositional coherence but welcomes the experimenting and double-exposed format. Where some proposals deal with attempts to control architectural landscapes this series implies a loss of control, where construction cranes have taken over or have infiltrated nature, bit by bit. In a visual battlefield between cranes and vegetation, who is the one to say sorry? Nature or us, the true intruders?

Special mentions

Besides the three prize winners, the Jury also selected three special mentions:

Andrea Ravn Beirholm from the Aarhus School of Architecture for the “The city seen from a narrow point of view” series.

The Jury writes:

Focusing on the urban landscape the series has an unfinished and imperfect approach to architectural photography and through pinholes reveals a soft and fluid architecture. In a passing-by documentary of ignored or forgotten places the unplanned and the timeliness project the ever-changing moves of and within the ordinary. The jury awards the experiment carried out in a process similar to the one in the darkroom where a hidden architecture is developed through homemade photographic tools.

Special mentions

Sonia Cohan from the Royal Danish Academy for the Topography & Topiary series.

The Jury writes:

In a dull, low-key, shadow-less setting, the mini-documentary series explores how the camera depicts the architecture of death, adding humor to a ‘grave serious’ context of the ‘final habitation’. Using straight forward architectural tools such as façade and section to describe the city of the dead, the everyday and casual photos by Cohan project an atmosphere of architecture maintained randomly by or to the best of the ability of descendants or a gardener. With a minimum of effort, the method could have been expanded further to examine this urban landscape phenomenon.

Special mentions

Sanidhya Shah (India) from the Padmabhushan Dr. Vasantdada Patil College of Architecture for the Shifting Equilibrium series.

The Jury writes:

From nature’s densely vegetated domain to the urban landscapes’ concrete and stone surfaces, this series is a visual journey from the unpredicted and temporary to the restricted and planned. Photographic documentation of timeliness, loss and nature disappearing, and the architectural landscape becoming increasingly permanent and solid. The well composed series further marks humans’ ability to adapt to new realities, while changing and living in them.