Competition: Agents for Human Interaction

The winner of the competition held jointly between the Royal Academy Architecture Programme and World Architecture News to design an ‘Agent for Human Interaction’ was announced on Tuesday 17 April 2007.

Contemporary urban societies offer numerous opportunities for casual encounters but do not necessarily provide the ability to create a network of meaningful engagements. Responding to specific local or shared global concerns, entrants were invited to propose an agent for human interaction. The design proposal could be a structure or device, a programme or a network, which could be permanent or perhaps temporary but facilitates and strengthens how people interact.

Prize money of £3,000 was awarded at the discretion of the judges; MaryAnne Stevens, Acting Secretary, Royal Academy of Arts; Richard Coleman, Chairman of WAN; architect Stephen Witherford of Witherford, Watson, Mann; artist Paul Schutze.

Results

Winner

Urban Projections

Urban Projections by Emergency Studio (Melissa Watkins and Patrick Hazari)

This project proposed a piece of mobile street furniture which converts pieces of captured conversation to text which is projected onto the facades of adjacent buildings. It has been created by Melissa Watkins and Patrick Hazari under the studio umbrella of Emergency Studio, an interdisciplinary design group. Both Patrick and Melissa received Bachelors of Architecture from the University of Tennessee, College of Architecture + Design in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2005. Melissa is currently working at Van Tine|Guthrie Studio in Detroit, MI, and Patrick is at Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism in New York.

Runners-Up

Underground Periscope by Ricky Lee
Urban Cultural Threshold by Veronica Peralta & Gustavo Sapina, SPA architects

Short-listed for display

Knitting Site by Ana Araujo, Pooja Asher, Erica Calogero, Ana Matic, Sagit Yakutiel & Jenny Wyness
Urban Potting Shed by Cameron Webster Architects and artist Ettie Spencer
Citadelpark in Ghent by Wim Goes Architectuur. Aldrik Heirman Landschapsarchitect

• Royal Academy of Arts