Superstudio 2019 - results

The ninth year of the Superstudio competition was dominated by students from Umprum among 100 competing teams

On Saturday, March 9, 2019, the CAMP space in Prague hosted the final evening of the architectural concept competition for university students, Superstudio. The finale began with a lecture by architects from the influential Portuguese studio Fala Atelier, who also prepared this year's brief. Over 100 teams registered for the ninth edition of the competition, which takes place in all cities with architectural education in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

“Superstudio is a very inspiring format. Platforms that allow dialogue between individual schools are very valuable,” respond architects Filipe Magalhães and Ahmed Belkhodja from Fala Atelier based in Porto, who, as authors of this year's brief, introduced the final evening with an introductory lecture about their work and methodological optimism. Both also served on the final jury.

The architectural concept competition Superstudio takes place in all cities with architectural education in the Czech Republic and Slovakia – Prague, Bratislava, Liberec, Ostrava, Brno, and Košice. This connects students from different schools and encourages critical thinking about various aspects of architecture related to defending their own opinions.

The theme of this year's edition focused on the very form of architecture. Two- to three-member teams worked for a time limit of 24 hours on a brief in which Portuguese architects asked students to design an ideal house for Sivka – the dog of the significant Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik. The brief primarily called for students to consciously engage with the language of architecture and carefully consider the concept of the design in relation to architectural references. The certain ambiguity of the brief then provoked a very diverse range of responses.

This year, a record number of 101 teams entered the competition – from which 19 of the best teams advanced to the sold-out finale on March 9 at CAMP, where they presented their projects to a professional jury. Besides the founders of Fala Atelier, the jury included architect and well-known architecture promoter Marcela Steinbachová and architect Pavel Nasadil from the successful firm FAM.

The jury awarded the first prize to students Adam Šustek and Vojtěch Tecl from the AAAD in Prague, who responded to a large part of the possible interpretations of the brief with their project. Their design “on the border between a house and a memory, a kennel and a column” represents an ancient column connected to Jože Plečnik's house in Ljubljana, which, in addition to being a resting place for Sivka, serves as a unique, thoughtful monument that materializes the master-dog relationship through its architecture.

The winning team received a glass trophy of Superstudio, which the company Lasvit designed and manufactured specifically for the competition. All awarded and advancing teams then shared the prize money of 50,000 crowns and other prizes.

The winning projects of this year’s edition will also be presented in an upcoming exhibition, which you can learn about on the website.

Results

1st Place Adam Šustek and Vojtěch Tecl
(AAAD in Prague)

2nd Place Miroslav Chmel, Kristýna Mocová, Barbora Tauerová
(Faculty of Art and Architecture, Technical University of Liberec and AAAD in Prague)

3rd Place Ema Krakovská, Richard Múdry, Táňa Šebová
(Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague and Faculty of Architecture, Czech Technical University in Prague)