Winners of the d3 Natural Systems 2012 Competition

d3 today announced the winners of its Natural Systems competition for 2012. The annual competition promotes investigation of natural systems from microscopic to universal toward determining new architectonic strategies. The competition invited architects, designers, engineers, and students to collectively explore the potential for analyzing, documenting, and deploying nature-based, sustainable influences in urbanism, architecture, interiors, and designed objects.

The jury, a panel of architects and designers engaged in sustainable practices and computational explorations, included Mark Gardner, University of Pennsylvania; Meg Jackson, Megapixelstudios/University of Houston; Vanessa Keith, Studioteka/City College of New York; Sandra McKee, Yoshihara McKee Architects/Columbia University; Michael Morris, Parsons; Christina Noble, AIA Forward Journal; Kerry Nolan, Gluckman Meyer Architects.  The jury was hosted by the Fordham University Department of Visual Arts in their Manhattan facilities. The program was developed by co-directors Gregory Marinic, Director of Interior Architecture and Assistant Professor in the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston, and Ji Young Kim, member of the J-SEArC research group at Columbia University.

The competition awarded three top prizes and ten special mentions.

First Prize: Infrastructure Flows: Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
Young Bum Kim and Hung Kit Yuen (South Korea / Hong Kong)

Second Prize: TERRA FirmA
Erin Saven and Wy-men Loh (USA / Malaysia)

Third Prize: Bio-Reactive Crossing: Aircraft De-Icing Mitigation at JFK
Inju Lee, Haemee Han and Yunsun Shim (USA)

Special Mentions were awarded to:

• Research Methodology: Urban Fluctuation by Kais Al-Rawi, Julia Koerner, Vincenzo Reale and Mary Polites (Jordan / Austria / Italy / USA)
• Performance Research: Spatial Sundial by Wai Wing Yun (Hong Kong)
• Landscape Urbanism: Lichen City: Mexicali by Aaron Onchi Rascon and Betty Sanchez (Mexico)
• Environmental Systems: Accretion Creation: Alexander Tarr (UK)
• Formal Expression: Desert Flower by Longwei Wu (China)
• Alternative Typology: Unidentified: US-Mexico Borderlands Biocrematorium & Memorial by Andrew Lords and Leonardo Rodriguez (USA)
• Dystopian Future: City Rescuer, Detroit by Jing Xu and Tianyi Gu (China)
• Industrial Design: Hydrophonic Growing System by H Min Koh (South Korea)
• Directors’ Choice: Root Multiplicity: Stabilizing Coastal Ecologies by Will Bloomer (USA)
• Directors’ Choice: Green Earth Worm by Insung Son, Sinwoo Lee, Yoonseok Hwang and Eunji Lee, Bora Kim (South Korea)

Check out the image gallery below to see more of the Special Mentions. All images courtesy of d3 Natural Systems.