Superstudio 2018 - festive announcement of the final round

On Saturday, March 10, 2018, the grand final of the 8th edition of the architectural and urban competition for university students, SUPERSTUDIO, took place. For the first time in history, the competition was held in all cities with architecture education in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A record number of 98 registered teams faced a challenging brief from Dutch architect Marthijn Pool, who also sat on the final jury. The winners were students from the Technical University in Košice, who proposed the use of decommissioned trains in lucrative locations of urban centers for housing and social life.
“What struck me about the brief was that it clearly appealed to all participants. It combined several approaches together – linking the innovativeness of solutions with the necessity to think rationally and economically, and moreover, it required consideration of the added value of the solution. Briefs conceptualized this way are not common at all,” evaluates the brief of the 8th edition of Superstudio final jury member Prof. Michal Kohout from the international office UNIT.
The author of the brief was respected Dutch architect and urban planner Marthijn Pool from the progressive studio Space&Matter. He focused on the very pressing issue of affordable housing in urban centers. Students were not only tasked with designing solutions from an architectural perspective, but they also had to consider them from socio-economic viewpoints.
The first round of the competition, based on a strict 24-hour time limit for developing the brief, took place from March 2 to 3 in Prague, Brno, Liberec, Ostrava, and for the first time also in Bratislava and Košice. From a record number of 98 registered teams, a total of 18 teams made it to the final evening held on March 10 in the Bratislava space A4. Students thus had a week to refine their projects before the presentations before the final jury consisting of Marthijn Pool, Prof. Michal Kohout, and successful Slovak architect Martin Jančok.
During the final presentations, students demonstrated their individual approaches to the brief. Several teams proposed innovative uses of existing gaps in the cities with an emphasis on the community aspect of the intervention, but there were also thoroughly thought-out economic models of affordable housing, which were particularly appreciated by Marthijn Pool, and several teams were even challenged to try to realize their projects.
The jury awarded the first prize to the project of Košice students Marek Cehula, Ondřej Jurčo, and Anna Longauerová, who proposed the use of abandoned railway infrastructure in the broader centers of cities for housing and social life of residents. “The team demonstrated a very simple yet clever idea: using empty trains as 'plots' that can serve for the realization of affordable housing,” commented Pool.
The awarded teams shared a total prize money of 50,000 CZK, and the winners also received unique trophies from the Czech glass company Lasvit.

Ranking:
1st prize: Marek Cehula, Ondřej Jurčo, Anna Longauerová (FU TUKE, Košice)
2nd prize: Vojtěch Marek, Petra Šebová (FA VUT, Brno)
3rd prize: Anna Hrušová, Michaela Říhová (FUA TUL, Liberec)
Honorable mention: Ema Krakovská, Tatiana Šebová, Richard Múdry (FA + FSv ČVUT, Prague)
Honorable mention: Alexander Storek, Jakub Wiesner (UMPRUM, Prague)