This week MVRDV is pleased to announce that three members of our team, Marie Saladin, Andrea Anselmo and Karolina Szóstkiewicz have taken part, and won, major design competitions across Europe. Both Marie and Andrea were part of separate teams that took part in the Dutch and Norwegian Europan 13 competition respectively, whilst Karolina won a competition for the Varna Regional Library, Bulgaria. We were also excited to hear about the successes of several ex-MVRDV team members. Linda Högberg and Tadas Jonauskis recieved special mentions for their entries into the Swedish Europan 13, Francisco Triviño was a runner up in the Austrian Europan 13, and Filippo Fanciotti worked with Andrea as part of the team for their winning entry in Norway.
Europan 13 is an idea competition for young urban and architectural designers which spans over a two year period and involves over 50 European cities and over 2000 teams. The competition allows young architects to engage in an ongoing debate and research on the spatial framework of the European society, not only offering cities and developers new and innovative solutions to local urban planning and development, but also providing an opportunity for young architects to gain real experience and commissions through their designs.
Marie, along with team mate Marion Vassent-Garaud, entered their project ‘In-Between’ into the Europan 13 Netherlands competition which saw over fifty entries spread across two sites. The jury stated that the project, situated in Streefkerk, was ‘An innovative version of the socio-economic significance that dike housing has traditionally had … addressing current problems and future possibilities for rural development.’ The goal of the project was to ‘accommodate various ways of living in synchronicity with the public space at road level and the rural quality of the polder territory. Splitting the volume of a traditional Dutch home horizontally creates and inter-space between heaven and earth, top and bottom, and public and domestic life. The columns, making it possible to jack up the housing are used as a skeleton for the building structure. A central vertical axis serves as a core of energy derived from external sources: water, wind and sun.’
Andrea and his team entered their project ‘The False Mirror’ into the Europan 13 Trondheim, Norway, competition. The jury stated that, ‘The authors respond to the Europan 13 theme “adaptable city” by proposing a new form of adaptability that is based on an analysis of the local morphology, typology and symbolism. In the project this is exemplified with a reinterpretation of what the project defines as four local “archetypes”: the warehouses, the canals, the sea vessels as well as specific land and water infrastructure.’ The jury described how the design offers a break from the generic city and re-establishes a true Trondheim identity, by bring the waterfront into the site. Heritage buildings and cultural focal points now suddenly play an important role in the re-defined urban logic and intra-site and city connections have been relocated and improved.
Linda, along with her two team mates Oskar Grundström and Theo Storesund, received a special mention for their project in Nacka, Stockholm, which was described as offering ‘an interesting twist of perspective that ends up with both intriguing public spaces with sea views and fascinating typologies.’ Their ‘dense housing carpet’ was said to generate an open discussion amongst the jury with regards to ‘what kind of economy such a development would generate.’
Karolina and her team ‘Architects for Urbanity’, a collaborative design and research practice, won first place in a competition for the design of a new regional library in Varna, Bulgaria. The proposal, a 17.500 square metre building, was praised for ‘its ability to fit into the context unobtrusively’. The building comprises of two main volumes, divided by an ‘open space of knowledge’ that opens up the building to the public and encourages them to enter. The act of ‘giving back the library to the city’ aims to act as an urban condenser and start a domino effect which will radically alter the intellectual scene of the city, in a country which has Europe’s lowest percentage of libraries per resident.
MVRDV takes great pride in the achievements of our team members both inside and outside the office. As designers, they must be encouraged to develop their own style and repertoire of work, and we as a company value the experience that they gain from external competitions, which in turn feeds back into our works and projects. Although, above all else we would like to say congratulations to Marie, Andrea, Karolina and Linda, for their achievements. For more information about their projects please follow the links below:
Marie Saladin:
Andreas Anselmo:
False Mirror Project - Facebook
Karolina Szóstkiewicz:
Architects for Urbanity - Facebook
Europan Sweden
Europan Austria