Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition 2010

"A New Spirit", judged by Ryue Nishizawa:

The theme of the competition this time is “A New Spirit”. I am seeking proposals that suggest new dwellings for a new era.

The houses we live in today are comfortable and wonderful in their own way, but many were created in the past. Most were created for, not the times to come, but a way of life and a society of the past. Times change; the form of society changes, as does human life. Our lives today are markedly different from lives a century ago. Houses in every age of history have vividly expressed the intensity and wonder of human life. We ought to be capable of conceiving a residential image that suggests how wonderful life is in our own era.

To conceive a new house is also to conceive a lifestyle for a new era, to explore the possibilities for amazing ways of life in the times to come. It is to ask, what are the new values of our era? what is the new spirit that makes new houses possible? The expression of a new spirit may require an approach different from that of the past. The result may not resemble what we now imagine to be a house. Circumstances may require the remaking of the city itself. No particular conditions will be set regarding the place it is to be situated in, or the people or life it is to accommodate ─ you are free to design as you see fit. I am hoping for highly imaginative depictions of wonderful buildings that suggest the future, buildings that clearly demonstrate the wonder of contemporary human life.

http://www.shinkenchiku.net/skc/en/index.html