13th International Young Architects' Concept Design Awards and Exhibition

Throughout history, the ‘unknown’ has been a concept that stimulates humanity’s desire to learn and enables science to advance. While scientific research seeks the unknown and aims to produce new knowledge, it also reinterprets what is known, posing and questioning new unknowns. Within this framework, the discipline of architecture can likewise develop by investigating and illuminating new unknowns in the light of existing knowledge. Architecture is a discipline whose historical development can be traced through the ages and which continues to evolve and transform by confronting new problems and holding the potential for solutions. Leaving Earth for any reason and designing spaces in an extraterrestrial context is one of the most compelling ‘unknowns’ for architecture, which has remained tied to Earth throughout its history.

The possibility of living in space or on other planets is now being considered and scientifically researched. These developments raise the following questions for architecture:

What challenges and opportunities for solutions does an extraterrestrial context present for architecture? How can an alternative to life on Earth take spatial form? How might environmental factors in space or on other planets influence architectural design? Can sustainable life be designed in these alternative contexts after a journey with no return to Earth? The conceptual projects developed through this gathering are expected to explore ideas for ‘living capsules’ designed for an extraterrestrial context chosen by the participants. In seeking answers to the questions above, the aim is to develop critical ideas about the ‘unknown’ in architecture and to examine the architecture of the future at the scale of the universe. A further aim is to interpret alternatives for extraterrestrial life from an architectural perspective. The project should address the concept of the ‘unknown’ through the environmental factors of space or other planets. Within this framework, the aim is to discuss and develop ideas for ‘extraterrestrial living capsules’ that extend the boundaries of life beyond the scale of Earth to that of the universe, explore the unknown in architecture, and question and illuminate every component of the concept of the unknown.

One of our founding architects, Ömer Yeşildal, Architect, M.Arch., was awarded first prize among the many projects featured in the exhibition.