Historically, Asia’s architecture has tended to be heterogeneous; each civilization – from the Persians to the Chinese, the Indians to the Ottomans – has contributed to the creation of an architectural cartography that established the spatial organization of cities such as Istanbul, Isfahan, Samarkand, Calcutta, Beijing, and Tokyo, and immensely influenced the architectural traditions of the western continents. Consequently, Eastern contributions to Western culture and architecture deserve significant scholarly investigation. Nineteenth and twentieth century modernism (as evidenced by the modern movement in architecture in the West) dominated the landscapes and cityscapes in Asia, with largely unpleasant results. With the vast urbanization that has taken place in the later part of the twentieth century, the number of megalopolises that have emerged marks a dominant trend around the world. By the end of the twenty-first century, Asia will have the largest number of megalopolises. Recently, architectural traditions and cultures on the continent of Asia have started to stray from modernism. Architects in Asia are now offering alternatives relevant to their specific geographies and cultures.
As part of its expanding activities 2A is now organizing the 2A Asia Architecture Award. This event takes place annually to highlight and celebrate regional and Asian achievements in architecture which will feature awards and exhibitions as well as debates by the participants on the influences and methods. 2A Continental Architectural Award is a critical effort to recognize and acknowledge architects who have engaged in creating and designing buildings and cities in Asia originating from their specific cultural and geographical localities and possess specific quality and characteristics attributable to their local origins. This continent-wide annual award is an attempt to offer long overdue recognition to a whole new class of architects. A specific theme will be determined and announced every year, and the award’s content will be adjusted accordingly.
2ACAA brings up and discusses the following aspects of the contemporary practice of architecture in the world:
• Theoretical visions of culture, customs, politics, economics, history, and other social elements
• Ideas regarding various origins
• Conceptualizations
• Artistic and aesthetic criteria
• Sustainability
• Modern life and technology
Jury Members:
– Santiago de Molina
Architect, Ph. D , Professor at San Pablo CEU University of Madrid
– Areti Markopoulou
Architect, Academic Director at IAAC
– Chitra. K. Vishwanath
Architect, Director of Biome Environment Solution
– Francisco Burgos
Architect, Partner Founder of “Burgos & Garrido Arquitetos Asciados”, Spain
– Benjamin Lborra Wicksteed
Architect, Partner founder of MESURA, Spain
Head of Organizing Committee & Director of 2ACAA 2019
Ahmad Zohadi
Hosted by:
Polytechnic University of Madrid in October 18th, 2019
Organized by:
2A Magazine
Categories for Completed Projects
For completed projects, the award will be presented in the following categories. All categories are open to practices of all sizes and there is no limit to the amount of categories you can enter, however one project cannot be entered in two different categories. Please see How to Enter for more details on entries.
1) Residential
A- House/Villa
B- Apartment
C- Housing/ Residential Complex
2) Commercial
A- Shopping and Production
B- Office and Business
C- Retail, stores, warehouse
3) Public
A-Leisure, Travel Accommodation
B- Education
C- Medical, Nursery, etc.
D- Culture and Religion
G- Others
4) Urban Projects, Rural Projects, Landscape
5) Old and New (Reuse and adaptation, Renovation, Restoration, Regeneration)
6) Interior Architecture
7) Future Projects/Innovative Designs
This category is a celebration of excellence design-only, future or uncompleted projects including entries of regional/ international competitions, that meet the following conditions. We will be looking to champion creation and concept that has pushed its specific typology forward and proven a holistic and effective approach. Also:
• The site of the project is located in Asia, having rich ecological, cultural, historical or physical characteristics and features.
• Has Focused on responsive design, having addressed, challenged or responded to an architectural-related issue (physical, ecological, sociocultural, contextual, technical and..).
• It is based on local or regional studies.
• Introduces or represents an innovative design vision / approach.
The projects in this category will be divided in four subcategories:
A- Large-Scale Architecture
B- Medium-Scale Architecture
C- Small-Scale Architecture
Please note that:
• Future project category covers all eligible entries, regardless of the project program and subject.
• Except for the date of completion, this category covers and follows the same regulations and procedure for submission as built project categories.
Rules, Conditions and the procedure of the 2A Asia Architecture Award
• 2A Asia Architecture Award is a one-stage entry/ two-stage judging award.
• The First Stage Entry is open to all professional entrants, i.e., Individual architects, urban designers, urban planners, landscape architects, multi-professional teams and Architectural firms and offices.
• Other associated bodies, e.g., clients, developers, contractors, may also enter on behalf of the architect, with their consent.
• Join projects between universities and industry are eligible to participate in the competition.
• The Entries include two Sheets, introducing the project, in A3 size (Maximum 10 MB Each File of the Panel).
• The candidate projects of The First Stage Entry will be notified by email as well as will be announced in the 2A magazine website.
• The sheets of candidate projects will be printed out and the jury members will choose the winners of each category in a meeting held by 2A Magazine in Polytechnic University of Madrid.
• All projects should have been completed on or after 01 January 2010. For Future Projects/Innovative Design category entries, the design dates should not be older than 2010.
• Future project category covers all eligible entries, regardless of the project program and subject.
• All Projects should have been built /located in one of the Asian countries. As for Future project category, the site of the project must be located in Asia.
• Participants can submit multiple projects under one website account, and there is no limit on the number of submitted projects.
• Each project can be applied only to a single category of the Award. In another words, one project cannot be submitted under two different categories.
• Winner projects of the previous 2ACAA are not eligible to participate in the 2ACAA 2019.
Note: Further submission [of the projects] would be also available from the panel of participant, please click Submit Your Project at your own panel.
If you have any problem submitting your project to our website please contact us at: info@2aincorp.com
Vision
2A Asia Architecture Award 2019
2A Magazine is pleased to announce 2A Asia Architecture Award 2019, with the theme “Innovative Contextual Architecture in Asia”. Accordingly, the Award is for the recognition of an individual’s or group’s substantial contribution to today’s architecture in terms of contemporary challenges of the field and region and the projects that can have a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. This gathering is a profile of the diversity of cultures, identities, themes, ideas, and experiences in architecture and a platform to share, explore and discuss in a professional environment.
The program includes:
• The Award Ceremony
• The exhibition of the candidate projects
• The selection of the “Innovative Project of the Year”
• The Interaction Forum
Criteria
The following criteria will be considered to recognize and honor a built project/ future project in Asia that has produced significant contributions to humanity and built environment.
• Design Achievement including Concept, Strategy and Proceedings.
• Technical advancement includes engineering achievements (structural, mechanical, etc.) and innovative use of materials.
• Reflection of sense of place and of cultural identity and ecology; environmental sustainability (including ecological, and sociocultural sustainability)
• Social responsibility and community and urban connectivity.
• The effects of economical condition on the project.
• Transcendent Dimensions of Architecture (It’s below text has been provided by: Nader Ardalan)
From a survey review of the projects selected by the 2A Asia Architecture Award, what are the key, common-ground lessons learned about principles and conditions that support transcendence in architecture and practices that perpetuate access to such realm? How can they serve as “beacons” or “attractors” (from Chaos Theory) that may (1) guide future design efforts toward Transcendent Architecture; (2) empirically indicate its presence; and/or (3) provoke an experiential awareness of the sublime and the ineffable in the perceiving individual? At the core of our search might be the questions: what is transcendent creativity and how may some of the following considerations suggest valuable domains for investigation and inspiration to evoke a viable, common-ground and multi-dimensional framework for achieving in the individual and the collective a profound awareness of potentially holistically sustainable, culturally conscious and integrated 21st-century worldviews about the “Transcendent” in Architecture and environment building?
-Sensual Conditions: These include Tectonics/Materiality that are in direct and inevitable relation with natural Light, without which they couldn’t be fully appreciated. However, this dimension through its tactile, haptic, and other sensual qualities also bring the non-visual nature of architecture into full consideration.
-Formal-Spatial Conditions: These include space-form, geometry (proportion, mathematical order) and scale, which are an inseparable set for what could be best called the ‘Aesthetic Conditions’ of Transcendent Architecture.
-Programmatic Conditions: These cluster a creative, Luminous Building Program and the integration of Motion (access, ritual, and path) into the building design that basically deals with what is happening within and in proximity to the building.
-Temporal Conditions: They address anything that involves duration such as silence, sound and time itself.
-Connectedness Conditions: They bring attention to the myriad ways that architecture must relate to its physical and metaphysical environment: Context (immediate site), Cosmos/Nature (larger scale) and Ontological Axis (relation between measurable and immeasurable)
-Holistic Conditions: This puts together the most phenomenological yet profound effect of Transcendent Architecture: the sense of Unity and the Experience of the Hidden/Manifest.
These questions are especially urgent now, at this threshold of the 21st century threatened by vast impending global crises when critical thinking, at its most profound best, must contend with and challenge the pervading, outdated materialistic notions of reality that have brought us to this tipping point. The current model of ultimate reality holds that all questions can be answered by means of the scientific method of objective observation and measurement and existence is but a temporary, lifeless group of particles and waves that accidentally created separated human consciousness from isolated material realities. This notion is now being doubted by new state of the art paradigms and reinforced by discoveries of ancient wisdom traditions, which contend that our external and internal perceptions are fully intertwined and say that reality is based upon our consciousness which conceives, governs and generates our perceptions of the physical world. [1]
[1] Robert Lanza & Bob Berman, Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, BenBella Books, Dallas, 2009
Candidate Project
1) The projects that pass the first stage of scrutiny are regarded as “Candidate Project.”
Note 1: The project submission has to be done from May 15th to August 05th
Note 2: The consideration of the first step to select the qualified projects will be done by organizing committee.
2) The message of qualification of the candidate projects will be sent to you as the participants [via email] In 72 hours after their participation and asks to pay the candidate fee of 295 USD.
Note: Please send to us the receipt on the same place of the participant own panel or email to us.3) The list of candidates projects of 2ACAA 2019 will be declared at the website on August 05th,2019.
3) The list of candidates projects of 2ACAA 2019 will be declared at the website on August 05th, 2019.
4) All the candidate projects will be published in a special edition of 2A Magazine.
5) All the candidate projects will receive a qualification letter, representing that their project has been nominated by the organization of 2ACAA.
6) Architects of the Candidates projects are welcome to the award ceremony and interaction forum in Polytechnic University of Madrid.
Note: their invitation card will be sent to them maximum one month before the event.
7) one day exhibition of all the candidate projects will take place at Polytechnic University of Madrid, 18th October 2019.
Prizes
• The top two winners in each Award category will receive Gold and Silver medals and the award certificate (from 2A Magazine), respectively.
• The award sculpture will be given to the first places in all the categories.
• Upon Jury’s approving decision there might also be some special mentions in each category.
• The special mentions will receive certificates of recognition.
• All the candidate projects will be published in a special edition of 2A Magazine and extra pages will be allocated to the winners and special mentions.
• The winners of 2ACAA will be registered in the new facility of our website, “ Architectural Encyclopedia”, which is a platform for the introduction of the architects and their projects.
• Clients, developers and investors of the winner projects will receive a Letter of Appreciation. If winners send us the request for providing this letter.
Note: To receive the prizes and certificates, it’s mandatory to participate in the award ceremony.
Award Calendar
Submission:
Asia – Oceania: The entry opens on May 15th, 2019 and closes on June 30th, 2019 , 4.00 pm CET.
Jury meeting will be held in October 16th, 2019 and judgment of the printed panels at Polytechnic University of Madrid :
Award Ceremony:
October 18th, 2019
Exhibition of The Candidate Projects:
October 18th, 2019
Judgment
– First Stage of consideration: After the Entry Deadline, representation of the award organization award database and will rate the projects bsed on the judging criteria. The qualified projects will be chosen.
– Second Stage of Judgment: In a meeting held by 2A Magazine in Polytechnic University of Madrid, the winners will be selected.
Submission Fee
The 2ACAA entrance is free of charge.
The candidate projects will be charged 295 USD to be considered for the next stage of judgment.
Note: This fee is to cover the costs of printing the presentation sheets, transferring the sheets to the location of the second stage of judgment, keeping the sheets until the exhibition of the candidate projects, publishing the candidate and winner projects in 2A Magazine, participation in the award ceremony and a plus-one.
Interaction Forum
2A Magazine Interaction Forum will take place alongside the award ceremony of the 2A Continental Architectural Award on October 18th, 2019
If you are interested in participation please contact us with sufficient info about your speech via email at
pr@2aincorp.com
Note: The introduction of the speakers and abstract of their lectures will be published in the 2A Magazine and its website.
Copyright Policy
By submitting your projects to the award website [www.2aincorp.com] you will give us (2A Magazine) the permission to publish and share your project in our website and display in the award ceremony, on the other hand, All the information at the projects submitted to 2ACAA have been provided by the competitors (Designer and Director) and they are the copyright holder in this regard.
If there is any miscount, mistake or lack of credits regarding the project team and designers, 2A Magazine has NO obligation and the issue concerns the participants directly.
Note: All the information submitted to the magazine have been provided by the competitors- participants or architect [designer], hence, the responsibility of the third part liability lies with the competitors.
Award Venue
Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura (ETSAM) Technical University of Madrid / Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM) Av. Juan de Herrera, 4
E- 28040 Madrid