First Prize

The Kaira Looro competition announces winning designs for the Emergency Operations Center in Africa

The winning designs for the Kaira Looro Peace Pavilion competition 2020 were recently announced by the international Jury, including 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, 2 honourable mentions, 5 special mentions, and 20 finalists.

The ”Emergency Operations Centre” is the 4th of the Kaira Looro international architecture competition. The architecture is intended to house and facilitate the many activities which international organisations and local authorities must implement in order to solve emergencies and provide aid to affected communities. You can find out more about the brief in our previous feature about the competition. The competition had an exceptional turnout with over 455 projects submitted from all around the world. The projects showed great sensibility towards the theme of the competition and towards the geographical context of the project.

The winning project will receive a cash prize (€ 5000) and an internship at the prestigious Kengo Kuma & Associates in Tokyo, Japan. The second team will receive 1.500€ and an internship at the SBGA in Milan, Italy and the third team 1.000€ and an internship at Mopheti Morojele Design in Johannesburg, South Africa. Furthermore, all of the awarded projects will be published in the competition’s official book, exhibited at events, and published in articles and magazines.

Here’s an excerpt from the synopsis of the winning design, which you can read in full here. You can also view all 30 of the winning entries here.

Aiming at providing an immediate relief after the disaster, the key characteristics of the Foldable Emergecy shelter are those of an easy assemble and disassemble process, a compact and flexible structure, and adaptability to rapidly changing conditions. Such peculiarities have been achieved by introducing a construction system based on a single, prefabricated element – a rectangular plywood board with indentations which by an easy process of assembling – sliding one board into the other – creates a waffle-like construction that might be quickly put together and demountable even by an unqualified person in a very short time.

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