Japanese office, The Shelter Corporation, has announced their 17th international architectural ideas competition, open to undergraduate and post-graduate students (as of September 11, 2015) across the world. The Shelter Corporation, which focuses on timber and wood-framed buildings, hosts this competition annually to generate discussion among students on the future of wood and timber construction. Believing in the importance of a sustainable built environment, the firm hopes that this competition can be the gateway for many young architects-to-be to enter the workplace with new ideas.
This year’s theme is, “Freeing Architecture”. As society changes, so do the needs of its people, and the competition calls on students to think about architecture in ways that have been previously unexplored – to imagine an architecture without preconceptions or established rules. This is not to say that entries should be indulgent of the architect, but rather that they should humbly and honestly address the questions of what place architecture holds in the present and in the future. Questions of who architecture is for; how it relates to the past, present and future; and its own possibilities and constraints are all expected to be considered.
