MOSUL’S HOUSING COMPETITION – WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT

Tamayouz Excellence Award is delighted to announce the winners of the Rifat Chadirji Prize and its 2017 theme “Rebuilding Iraq’s Liberated Areas: Mosul’s Housing Competition”. The competition organised by Tamayouz, an excellence award dedicated to supporting aspirational and transformative projects tackling local and global challenges, informed by a holistic understanding of context. The prize is named after Dr Rifat Chadirji, a great Iraqi Architect, theorist and author whose influence and importance is far beyond built work. The Rifat Chadirji Prize is a thematic open international prize focuses on proposing designs responding to local challenges in Iraq. This prize aims to introduce Iraq and its challenges to the world and invite them to submit their ideas and to establish an uncompromising open source of ideas tackling social issues in Iraq through design. ​ In its inaugural year, The Rifat Chadirji Prize received 223 entries submitted by firms, practitioners and students from 42 countries. Tamayouz Excellence Award will present the winning entries to the Ministry of housing and reconstruction in Iraq, in addition to other governmental organisations responsible for the rebuilding of Iraq’s liberated areas. The organisers planned Six exhibitions showcasing the Top 20 entries selected by the judging panel; these exhibitions will be held in Amman, Baghdad, Boston, Beirut, Milan and London. Participants were asked to design a prototype for affordable housing for the post-Daesh Mosul, which can be easily replicated with the objective of increasing the capacity of housing in the city and providing a practical and inspiring solution for returnees. Around 900,000 internally displaced returned/will be returning to their homes following the liberation of the city, many of those returnees will find nothing but complete desolation.

Check the theme for the 2018 Rifat Chadirji Prize

The Judging Panel of the Rifat Chadirji Prize – Mosul’s Housing Competition

The winners
The winning entries were selected unanimously by the Tamayouz Award judging panel

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Re-settlement
First Place:  Anna Otlik
Wroclaw – Poland

The idea of the project is to let the refugees settle by their own in a very traditional way, and designing the house space by the inhabitants according to the various needs of the different family (size, faith, culture). All the process as an informal settlement has a progressive character and uses the leftovers and recycled materials. Of course, the proper help of the municipality and charities is needed at the beginning. Their main role would be to deliver the networks, building materials and arrange helping centers which later would change its function into necessary city and public services.  The scheme of the construction is to start the helping center in a free land or densify free spaces inside the city center.  Then the refugees arrive and start to build their settles, deciding by their own about the filling of the walls, occupied place and functions inside the house.

Judging Panel’s comment: 
All the housing structure extend spontaneously in a sustainable, slow way and remains under constant evolution to provide a better future of the city of Mosul.  It considers the situation at all the relevant scales and stages, from initial emergency housing to a full-fledged neighbourhood.
“Re-settlement” also presents the very balanced relationship between mass and voids, and voids which have different categories. The private voids that are a private courtyard, and then the semi-public spines which lead to different dwellings or houses.  Then there’s the public spine. The shading itself creates a sustainable approach to the fabric.
The traditional courtyard is rethought to create a modern version of the courtyard house which is sympathetic to the wider landscape and the ecology of the city, there is a modesty to it that promises buildability, and yet at the same time it is attractive and will appeal to many different Mosulians, as a place to live.  This proposal fits in very well with its context; it is not as though they are putting big tall buildings. It is a low rise dense building. It complements the fabric and the density of the city. 

Second place:  Mariia Chorna and Oleksandr Kostevych
Wroclaw – Poland

When new housing units are affordable, the State will be able to build them in a big amount. For fast construction and for minimising costs the project limits construction to building skeletons. The State builds skeleton with communication and installation infrastructure. Residents themselves build internal and external walls. Due to the participation of the residences in construction, the units will be various.
The building shape is based on the size of the module. This modularity allows form apartments loosely. It can easily adjust to the different size and shape of the apartment to the resident’s needs. The apartments’ layout depends only on the residents themselves. However, several plans have been designed. Residents can build their apartments according to their vision or use the prototypes layout. The apartments plans show good housing conditions and comfort. It will encourage and inspire people to live in new blocks.

Judging Panel’s comment:
The scheme shown here represents a phenomenon that can be seen in many dense cities, like Cairo, Damascus and Mosul, where such ideas have evolved. It also shows the cultural presentation of the inhabitants – the way they created their facades, informal housing in such density. The second, third and fourth-floor growth is accommodated. However, we should avoid what is shown in this larger block, which fails to meet the poetry of the main concept idea. It is less convincing on a social interaction level.
The main image portrays an excellent attempt for a designer to bring the sense of informality into the city. It has a kind of familiarity. It has got variety and expandability. It encourages self-build, but not manufacturing. It is a building approach, not industrial. It brings it to a personal level.

The 5 farming bridges
Third place:  Vincent Callebaut Architectures
Paris – France

The 5 Mosul bridges connecting the west and east districts across the Tigris River were destroyed to encircle ISIS. The concept is to rebuild them as inhabited bridges by building the new city over the old city.  The self-sufficient 5 farming bridges will be covered with urban farms and agricultural fields to guarantee food autonomy and thermal inertia.
Incorporating wind chimneys for natural air cooling, cold ceilings using the thermal energy of the river, solar water heaters for hot water, hydrodynamic waterfalls and hundreds of photovoltaic pergolas producing electricity, each sustainable bridge will resemble an artificial mountain stacking thousands of standardised modules of 12.96m².  At 400 kilometers north of Baghdad, the rebuilding of the 5 bridges in Mosul, such as the mythical hanging gardens of Babylon, offers a vision of a positive future to restore the self-confidence of war refugees

Judging Panel’s comment:
Sometimes a design competition needs to recognise a more imaginative and distant possibility for the future than for the immediate present.
“The 5 farming bridges” signifies itself by approaching a neglected zone in most cities – above the river. In most cities, the above river concept is more industrial; this one humanises the inhuman by creating a liveable bridge, which has been seen in the history of big cities like Florence.
The judges selected this because of the level of imagination and yet, very realistically developed spaces. There is a sense of cultural background, and designers hint at it in the views, shaded spaces, construction, material.  This proposal directed to two of Mosul’s most immediate needs: housing and the reconsideration of its bridges, and yet at the same time uses the historical precedent of an inhabited bridge and yet speaks to the future in its morphology and construction.
Forget about the drones and consider the project as something that can be built conventionally. The drones are amusing; however, we can see commercial viability in this.  The mountains are inspired by the ziggurat, and the design is inspired by the muqarnas, which provokes the imagination. It is a fantasy of the hanging gardens.

The Honourable Mentions
In Alphabetical order

The big Mosulian family
Honourable Mention: Ali Nashwan and Fatima Ehsan
Mosul – Iraq

After analysing the current social situation in the city of Mosul, four main categories found affected mostly are: The now homeless families, orphaned homeless children, elderly homeless and without family and young homeless couples without a family.
Our proposal puts all these groups living under the roof as one family and complementing each other, the main concern now is social, and future generations must be raised like other children living in normal conditions.

Judging Panel’s comment:
It is a brave attempt at creating something new and different to Mosul traditional architecture.
The jury was impressed at the attempt to consider the Mosulian family regarding the various groups in society and the problems they face. The social aspect was very strong in this. “The big Mosulian family” is a particularly strong social vision for a more integrated future.

People’s Habitat
Honourable Mention: Marek Rytych Architekt
Marek Rytych, Natalia Ciastoń and Tomasz Hryciuk
Warsaw – Poland

In our housing modules we use solutions typical for Arab architecture such as patios, narrow, shaded streets and salsabils to face the climate challenges as well as the habits of the future residents. The modules are based on the 4x4m grid which makes it possible to assembly them in various combinations. We also designed the giant, precast wall-pots filled with soil that will cool the houses and streets and provide private, elevated gardens to all houses.
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Judging Panel’s comment:
The personalisation of this project right down to the image of the person returning with their family pleased the jury. It addresses the construction, sustainability, density, axis and balances solid and void.

Honourable Mention: Mostafa Alani
United States

The suffering of civilians who have fled death in Mosul is horrifying. These people require immediate support. With a consideration of limited resources, this proposed design divides the process of rebuilding houses in Mosul into two phases. In phase one (the Seeds), the aim is to meet the immediate needs of the people. The Seeds will be the primary components for new city housing. This phase is designed to satisfy the basic core needs of the affected civilians. In phase two (the Metamorphosis), the aim is to reestablish the city fabric, avoid populating regions with replicated houses, by allowing the residents of the Seeds to make informed decisions about the final output, at both the spatial organisation level and the facade design level.

Judging Panel’s comment:
The idea of seed and metamorphosis is good for flexibility and offers a broader sense of the longevity of the city. There is conflict in how the designer sized the open quarters. Much thought has gone into how it can be made and the methodology. There’s concern for the economics and building technology, and the jury was pleased to see this.
It is a good proposal for change over time, allowing for the personalisation of housing after the initial emergency stages. However, it does not allow for much variety.

A city without fences
Honourable Mention: Tay Othman
San Francisco – United States

This project is a land reuse project of Al Kindy Military Fabrication Facility, a step ahead towards demilitarisation of the city, as a unique site with obsolete land use situated on the east bank of Mosul. The concept is based on removing physical barriers from neighbourhoods to provide safety and privacy through grade separation, controlled sight lines, and a balance between visual privacy and natural surveillance.
The Design process aims towards providing a mixed-used project with low-rise high-density housing units arranged as planned urban developments (PUDs) with shared public spaces and amenities, this project will help to provide quickly installed modular residential units on a brownfield and potentially contaminated site while promoting connectivity to the adjacent residential districts and recreational sites.

Judging Panel’s comment:
The project is very strong conceptually in breaking down the barriers of the city. It strikes many of the right notes including the integration of public space, reuse of materials, regional and local cooperation, and the possible reuse of the al kindy site, this selection of the Al Kindy military fabrication facility as the site makes a strong anti-war statement.
The actual planning, in the end, is probably more regimented than it need be.

Project – TIE
Honourable Mention: Triplicity Architects
Stuttgart – Germany

Extracted from the meaning of Mosul itself, TIE is a strategic plan – aims to create a framework – that will empower the housing community to be resilient and independent. TIE shall not obliterate the destructed layer of the city. Instead, TIE will create new patterns from the existing layer in which the city can learn from its past follies to build its future.

Judging Panel’s Comment:
This project causes us to remember that verticality in the city is critical, the designers tried to break the verticality with a clustered approach, which reminds us of the old cities. However, verticality must always be in tandem with horizontality. It is as if part of the city becomes an elevation. So the elevation looks like the plan. It is an organic project that has a high level of homogeneity evidence of which can be seen in its elevation, that reminds us of a roof plan.
However, the tunnels are questionable. The proposal for the tunnels underneath the city is interesting as a concept yet it would require much more investigation.

Becoming Home
Honourable Mention: Weston Williamson + Partners
Philip Turner, Andrew Weston and Chris Williamson
London – United Kingdom

We cannot fully understand the current situation Mosul. We cannot impose a singular, inflexible housing solution that is expensive and difficult to implement; this may not respond to what people need and how they live. Mosul needs a prototype that focuses on the act of housing people, rather than a product. Responding to the long term housing crisis in the city, and the immediate post-occupation condition, this proposal suggests a predominantly autonomous, self-build housing process. Opportunities for choice and adaptation over time are incorporated, ingraining sustainability through a sense of ownership

Judging Panel’s comment:
The gabion walls with reuse of rubble materials is a good idea. The designer paid attention to the process of building with small details of construction and the use of traditional materials. There’s a good level of detail to the construction process and sanitary. However, there is space for vertical development. It shows Low technology with high impact with regards to the sanitation.

Tamayouz Excellence Award Founder, Ahmed Al-Mallak said:
“Congratulation to the winners of the 2017 Rifat Chadirji Prize for Architecture, we are delighted to see the inaugural cycle Prize a success; we launched Mosul’s Housing competition with the objective of showing the world the scale of the current challenges facing communities in Iraq. The participation of 223 firms and individuals from 42 countries, all contributing ideas responding to the humanitarian crisis are heartwarming. This competition had the value of reflecting difficult and controversial situations but through a reasonably optimistic lens. Although the competition finished, our work starts now to help organisation responsible for the reconstruction is their efforts.”

The winner selected by the judging panel will receive the Rifat Chadirji Prize trophy (designed by the Dia Al-Azzawi a pioneer of modern Arab art and one of the most prominent artists in the Middle East) at the Tamayouz Award Ceremony in Amman – Jordan, December 2017, where the first exhibition of the shortlisted project will be held and the 2018 theme of the prize will be announced.

This award and the meeting for the judges was made possible through the support of our generous sponsors; The Iraqi Business Council in Jordan, Kufa – Makiya Charity, Coventry University, Dewan Architects and Engineers, the United Nations Global Compact, Tradex Global Ltd, Artigiani Mondo, Ayad Al-Tuhafi Architects, Stadslab European Urban Design Laboratory and Fontys Academy.

For More information on the Rifat Chadirji Prize: www.rifatchadirji.com