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Fables and Fragments: Vision Award Winners Rethink CAD’s Potential
CategoriesArchitecture

Fables and Fragments: Vision Award Winners Rethink CAD’s Potential

By Zarkon Group,

We are thrilled to announce the winners of Architizer’s inaugural Vision Awards, the world’s biggest awards program dedicated to the art of architectural representation. Sign up to receive future program updates >  

Architecture is born from drawing. This act of laying out ideas and visions is what brings buildings and cities to life. Over time, as Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and digital technology became more popularized, there was a move from hand drawings to 3D modeling. Now, designers are quickly seeing the rise of AI-assisted visualization. Across these mediums and at the heart of architectural practice is the desire to tell compelling stories about people and places.

This year, Architizer launched the Vision Awards to recognize the talented students, professionals and studios who are envisioning the world’s architecture. Captured through photography, drawings, renderings, videos, physical models and more, there were hundreds of entries submitted across more than 30 categories. Taking a closer look at the winners, we can begin to see how designers are rethinking the potential of computer-aided design. The result is a series of beautiful, compelling works that represent visionary approaches to drawing and storytelling. The following three projects highlight the winners of this year’s Vision Awards for students, professionals and studios.

VENUE ID PINKLAO-SALAYA “Shirakawa-go”

By LWD.Co.,Ltd, Studio Winner, Vision Awards, Computer Aided Drawing

Underlining the idea that CAD drawings can be done in many different styles, the drawing VENUE ID PINKLAO-SALAYA “Shirakawa-go” by LWD.Co was the Vision Awards Studio Winner this year for Computer Aided Drawing. As the team outlines, it was made as an “inspired design that tells the story of a beautiful farming village nestled in the valley alongside the Shokawa River, where one might find an old house reminiscent of a childhood fairy tale.” Reading like a comic, the juxtaposition of angles, moments and frames moves the eye through the drawing and text.

LWD.Co. wanted to create an illustration that highlights the architectural design of Gassho-zukuri houses. “Built using the same architectural characteristics as traditional houses, this design employs the architectural style called Gassho-zukuri. Gassho means hands folded together in prayer. The distinctive feature of this traditional Japanese architectural style is the large gable roof that looks like hands folded together. This creates a beautiful blend between the wooden Japanese frame and the architectural style of a traditional Thai house. This combination is perfect for the hot and humid climate of Thailand; the elevated structure which creates a faux-basement space underneath the house is just one of the unique characteristics of Thai-style houses.”

Fable or Failure

By Alexander Jeong and Brandon Hing, Vision Awards Student Winners, Computer Aided Drawing

This imaginative drawing “Fable or Failure” by Alexander Jeong and Brandon Hing won the 2023 Architizer Vision Award for a Student Drawing in the Computer Aided category. Jeong and Hing’s rendering reimagines a multitude of fantastical scenarios through space travel. As the duo notes, “Fable or Failure is a project that seeks to reimagine how space travel can be conceptualized in the distant future of societal development.” Taking the shape of an exploded axonometric drawing, the winning entry uses black, white and grey linework and shading, as well as a single color to denote outer space.

Together, Jeong and Hing are curious in how a visualization can pose questions of space, community and gathering. “Will space travel be dominated by the rich and corrupt with the ability to experience otherworldly and transformative events, commodifying it? Can we imagine a future of space travel dominated by imaginative individuals or kids, optimistic in carrying the hopes of the future of the earth with them to space? Through three distinct parts: navigation, archival and extension, the organization of the shuttle is designed for a plethora of humanity’s desires in space travel.”

Into the Void: Fragmented Time, Space, Memory, and Decay in Hiroshima

By Victoria Wong, Professional Winner, Vision Awards, Computer Aided Drawing

Navigating the past, present, and future of Hiroshima, Victoria Wong’s incredible triptych is a study in composition and layering. As this year’s Vision Awards Professional Winner in the Computer Aided Drawing category, the drawing has a fantastic collection of stories embedded within it. In Wong’s words, “This triptych adapts Japanese aesthetic theories of transience and imperfection, and applies them to the city of Hiroshima.” The three selected locations (Genbaku Dome, Yagenbori, and Shukkein Garden) are experimental adaptations to the spatial and environmental challenges that facilitate ‘changes’ according to mental statuses and behaviors.

Photo Study: A zoomed-in shot showing one of the panoramic views that was described in the text that Victoria was working with.  

As writer Patt Fin notes, you might not immediately regard Victoria’s work “as an architectural drawing according to the way the term is usually understood. But this work is an architectural drawing in the more important sense; that is, it is engaged with the questions architects deal with every time they undertake a project, no matter how humble. The illustration explores the relationship between the past and the future and how each new addition to a city is an event in its ever-evolving story.”

We are thrilled to announce the winners of Architizer’s inaugural Vision Awards, the world’s biggest awards program dedicated to the art of architectural representation. Sign up to receive future program updates >  

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BVN and UTS rethink air conditioning with 3D-printed “breathing” system
CategoriesSustainable News

BVN and UTS rethink air conditioning with 3D-printed “breathing” system

By Zarkon Group,

Australian architecture practice BVN and the University of Technology Sydney have created a low-carbon, 3D-printed system that “breathes” like frog skin.

Named Systems Reef 2, the invention was made of recycled plastic 3D printed into a computationally optimised design that BVN said has 90 per cent less embodied carbon than a standard air-conditioning system.

The system also uses less operational energy because the air flows more easily around the organically shaped, branching tubing, with no corners to get stuck in.

Photo of translucent plastic tubes branching underneath a concrete slab ceiling
Systems Reef 2 is a reimagined system of air conditioning with an optimised design

The invention was designed to tackle the many deficiencies the architecture studio identified with air conditioning, a technology that BVN co-CEO Ninotschka Titchkosky describes as not having changed much since its invention in the early 1900s and having been “largely designed for manufacturing processes as opposed to human comfort”.

Air conditioning systems are typically made from steel sheets, which the BVN and UTS team’s analysis showed results in high embodied carbon and the use of much more material than is necessary. The systems also waste energy because they are structurally inefficient and difficult to change after installation.

“At the moment, the systems that we have, they’re really inflexible, they’re not particularly great for human comfort, they’re really expensive to change and they really limit the way we want to occupy buildings now in the 21st century, which is much more adaptive and agile,” Titchkosky told Dezeen.

Photo of a 3D printer nozzle extruding clear plastic in a layers to form a tube
The system is made of recycled plastic that is 3D printed into tubes

A key difference with Systems Reef 2 is that it’s “designed for air”, removing one of the key sources of inefficiency in existing systems: right angles.

These systems’ orthogonal designs, while suiting sheet metal construction, lead to air becoming stuck in corners and needing more energy to force it out.

“The most shocking thing we realised is that existing air conditioning systems basically aren’t aerodynamic and don’t even go through a computational fluid dynamic modelling process most of the time,” said Titchkosky.

Photo of two people holding up a length of clear plastic tubing as if to install it on a ceiling
The tubing is meant as a replacement for steel air conditioning ducting

Systems Reef 2 instead has an irregular, branching form with no sharp corners, and with a tapering shape so that extra energy isn’t needed to push cool air out of the furthest reaches of the tubing.

With the friction removed from the system, it is also smaller and slimmer, using overall less material.

To increase the comfort level for people sitting under the contraption, the team drew inspiration from frogs, which breath through their skin. Instead of using ducts, they covered Systems Reef 2 in tiny pores that effectively mist cool air into the space below.

Close-up photo of translucent plastic tubing forming the Systems Reef 2 air conditioning system
The tubing is said to have a beautiful, crystalline appearance

For a low-carbon material solution that is suitable for 3D printing, they chose recycled plastic, on the basis that not only is plastic waste plentiful but it can be easily recycled again and again, making Systems Reef 2 a circular design.

BVN used waste plastic that was obtained from hospitals, crushed into pellets and fed into the 3D-printing robot.

The material gives Systems Reef 2 a translucent, crystalline appearance that BVN says is “very beautiful”. There is also the possibility to print it in colours or illuminate it to personalise an office environment.

Close-up photo of the Systems Reef 2 tubing showing the texture of fine coils of plastic filament
The 3D-printing process gives BVN and UTS the ability to precisely control the shape of the ducting

The team’s final goal for Systems Reef 2 was that it be adaptable, which they achieved with a click-and-connect system with standardised fixings and seals to facilitate easy changes.

Because it is so simple and light, BVN estimates that it cuts down on onsite labour by more than 50 per cent — a significant draw given worldwide labour shortages — while being friendlier to the health of the installers.

The team uses generative design to tailor Systems Reef 2 to specific spaces, with an algorithm generating hundreds of iterations based on a given floor plan and the final design being chosen and tweaked through manual review.

BVN installed a prototype Systems Reef 2 at its own studio in Sydney, replacing the existing tertiary ducting and diffusers. It is now exploring more demonstration projects while getting the design ready to launch as a commercial product.

Photo of BVN's Sydney studio with Systems Reef 2 air conditioning system installed
BVN has installed a prototype of Systems Reef 2 at its studio in Sydney

It particularly sees the product as having great potential for retrofitting ageing buildings and says it could theoretically be installed in any office with an open-plan layout.

BVN and UTS were awarded Best Green Building Material/Product at the Australian Sustainability Awards 2022 for the design.

It is the second Systems Reef project BVN has undertaken, with each dedicated to some aspect of building services.

Photo of 3D-printing robot extruding material in coils
The team is now aiming to bring their invention to the market

“The reason it’s called Systems Reef is because we were starting to think about all the layers that exist in the ceiling as sort of like a reef — this kind of multi-layered environment where everything plays a part,” said Titchkosky.

“We wanted to move away from the idea of a services infrastructure to a services system that was more holistically interwoven and a lot smarter.”

BVN is an Australian architecture practice with offices in Sydney, Brisbane, London and New York. Its current projects include the Sydney headquarters for technology company Atlassian, which will be one of the world’s tallest hybrid timber towers at 40 storeys in height.

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