Marmomacc Names Architectural Award Winners
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Standardarchitecture
Beijing
River Terminal and Visitor Center, Linzhi, Tibet, China
Principal stone: Local stone
The three structures built in Tibet by this firm of young Chinese architects are linked by common characteristics: the complete integration into the surrounding landscape, the use of local materials and of stone collected in the vicinity, and the use of traditional techniques developed by Tibetan craftsmen.
The jury: These projects represent the interplay between Standardarchitecture’s architectural “credo” and local native stone culture … they elaborate, in a novel way, certain applications derived from local culture, such as highly-colored pigments obtained from natural powders and applied directly to the surface of the stone.
Aires Mateus & Associados
Lisbon
Laguna Furnas Research and Monitoring Center, Azores Islands, Portugal
Principal stone: Local volcanic
The complex includes small buildings, functioning as studios and lodgings, inserted into an extraordinary natural habitat: Laguna Furnas.
The jury: Local basalt is used in homogenous parallel patterns in the external covering, rising from the perimeter walls up onto the roof. These patterns accentuate the distortions of light created by the volumes and make their form ambiguous.
Sameep Padora & Associates
Mumbai, India
Shiv Temple, Wadeshwar, Maharashtra, India
Principal stone: Basalt
The temple rises within a spectacular landscape – on a tree-lined hill overlooking Lake Andhra – from which it radiates a sense of sacred isolation. The basalt tower, the shikhara, harks back to traditional construction concepts for sacred buildings.
The jury: The project is a gift to the Hindu community from the architect; workers donated their labor after normal working hours, and a quarry supplied the stone. It is a work that combines, in an exemplary way, a sophisticated process of intellectual simplification with the crafting talents and resources of the local area.