120 HOURS aims to give students a voice in the current architectural discourse. In 2023 we are collaborating with the UIA World Congress of Architects in Copenhagen which this year has the tagline Sustainable futures – leave no one behind. The competition deadline this year was 1. April. We thank all participants for their entries and congratulate the winners! Winners and honourable mentions are now published in our archive. All other entries and previous competitions will soon be available in the archive. Please follow our Instagram for updates.

Fold

Ideal house

Tales of MoMA

Perpetuo

Rescaling attitudes

Act of care: The image "Sustainability"

In memory of Architecture

Dear diary...

The most (un)sustainable building

Building Biographies: Tales of (un)Sustainability

A shelter is a living body

Building for 10'000 years

We like to change everything but ourselves

[765 entries were submitted in 2022. The full archive will be available soon.] The phrase visionary architecture refers to when architects make utopian, dystopian or fantasy projects that are never meant to be built – playful fantasies, sometimes simply impossible to realize. These architectural drawings on paper, often quite personal, allow insight into worlds that are impossible to visit, except through the imaginative environment. It is not easy to transform your dreams into precise drawings, so that they make sense to other people. So, why do people draw architecture without the intention of building it? For some people, visionary architecture represents a form of protest against their society, or an ideal for the future. For others it can be a creative exercise to sharpen their tools, or simply an escape from reality. This way of thinking can also be found in other creative fields, such as film, animation, literature and other art forms. But remember, one person’s utopia, may be another’s dystopia.

The Utopian Future of History

Eyes closed, eyes open

Beehive City

Impass-Impast

Old Flesh, New Skin

Darknet

THE END?

Dystopia? (for a utopia)

A Utopia in Dystopia

Escape or Exploration

Figure & Ground

Visions of Nowhere

I know why the caged bird sings

ZOOTOPIA

Dystopia-Utopia, Beijing

There Is No War

[720 entries were submitted in 2021. The full archive will be available soon.] In the Dzunguni village in Kenya, Eco Moyo Education Centre started a project in 2013, with the ambition of providing free primary education. They can now offer free primary education to more than 200 children in the village. They are constantly planning the next step. Eco is short for ecology (the scientific study of interactions amoung organisms and their environment). Moyo means heart in Swahili. Eco Moyo therefore refers to showing love for the environment.

Moyo Gardens

Deconstruction of a Pathway

Being Under the Sky

Alveoli

The Path of Colours

Aura of the Flora

D R E A M ' S C O R N E R

The Pre-Existent

One Module, Three Scales

Playdate

Peponi

aMAZEing adventures

Gathering A-Round Displacement

Walls

We Grow

Eco Moyo

The Cycle of Life

Dot to Dot

aRound Space

[612 entries from 77 countries were submitted in 2020. The full archive will be available soon.]  There is only one ocean. All water belongs to the same cycle. Not one square mile of surface ocean anywhere on earth is free from plastic pollution. 94% of the ocean plastic is found deep below the surface. In the first decade of this century, we produced more plastic than all the plastic in history up to the year 2000. Before 2050 it is expected that the oceans will contain more plastic than fish. We consume plastic without noticing. By the end of this competition you are likely to have consumed the amount of one credit card, just from your food and water. But don’t panic. We can solve it! And it starts with our attention.

Introspect

#internationalplasticexchange

Tidal Cleaning

Into The Belly Of A Whale

Plantastic Island Resort

Through the Looking Glass

PLASTIC MONEY

The Holy Gyre

WRAP US UP

Preciso do mar porque me ensina. (I need the sea because it teaches me)

THE GUM DIGESTION MACHINE

THE VEIL

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

FAITH NO MORE

The Sand Pavilion

Fossilia

For oil you are and to oil you shall return

[648 entries from 85 countries were submitted in 2019. The full archive will be available soon.]  Svalbard is a remote archipelago in the Arctic Ocean with some of the strangest geopolitical, climatic, temporal, social, and natural conditions on the globe. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 ensures that despite Norway’s formal sovereignty, no country can claim true possession over it or prevent others from settling there. Few people live at Svalbard for a long time. Some people move to Svalbard as a career move — to have something to put on their resume — others do it for the adventure, and some odd individuals just long for the midnight sun. Both buildings and people have a short-term perspective in Longyearbyen. There is also a long-term perspective in Svalbard. In the vast seed vault, built straight into the mountain side, plant seeds are being kept safe for the future. And deep down in one of the abandoned coal mines copies of rare manuscripts, from Brazil and other countries, are being stored. This frozen island acts as a last barrier for that which we must not lose.

MIMESIS

The Soaking Sponge

Backup

Kanten Av Verden

ENCODE

Belvedere

That's Hot!

Straight Outta Svalbard

Commom-man

the frozen bubble experiment

Symbiosis

FROZEN

MAKE_COLLAPSE

The Voice Of Glacier

No Land's Man

My tools become an artifact

The Last Measurer

MISSION: SAVE EARTH

A mountain hideout can solve your real-estate anxieties

The last four bears.

A Twenty-Second Century Settlement

The Garden Archive

TRACE, NO TRACE

KINTSUGI

[550 entries from 75 countries were submitted in 2018. The full archive will be available soon.]  Can you imagine a world without digital communication? Communication has evolved throughout the time, from body language to online messages. The dominant method to interact these days is through technology. We have expanded our range of communicating, but have we forgotten the physicality? How is communication perceived nowadays? What is the role of physical interaction in this digital reality? In an era of time–space compression, over-information, and social networks: has communication lost its spatial aspects? How can architecture generate interaction?

The Wall

Stairway to exit

A Room With a Wall

EMOJI SPACE

CIVITAS

Common Ground

Traces Exchange

THE SPACE BETWEEN

Atmospheroom

Dream of Murmuration

POOL PARTY

A Room for Communication

ATTENTION!

Odyssey

A fugitive room for interaction

[624 entries from 79 countries were submitted in 2017. The full archive will be available soon.]  The LiangMeng Primary school faces a beautiful valley located in the rural area of Puan City, China. It is connected by a 4 hour drive to the provincial capital Guyiang. The whole region is home to many Chinese ethnic groups, but the one that inhabits this underdeveloped rural area is known as the BUYI minority. Their economy is mainly based on agriculture and mining, and it has been slightly improved by the construction of logistic infrastructures after 1949. Even if their daily life is partially modernized, their culture is still influenced by ancient traditions and activities.

rich and simple.

CONVERGE // DIVERGE

building with boxes

FOOD OF KNOWLEDGE

In between

no.120

Interface

Steps of LiangMeng

JIAN

The earthwork and the roof

Let's enhance community

The Way of the Buyi

In 'n' Out Village

[656 entries from 76 countries were submitted in 2016. The full archive will be available soon.]  In the present time the architectural discourse has shifted towards a purely political and programmatic agenda. You are requested to take an antithetical position in order to think about architecture in its most essential and fundamental values. The current tendency implies a hierarchical order that doesn't consider composition and tectonics until the end of the development of a project. The aim is to revert the normal sequence of the design process. Architectural choices will define a project based on pure spatial qualities rather than economic or programmatic organization.

Infinite House

To Be Perceived

Prison

To Make a House Without Function

A House Without Function

The last space without function

Florilegium. Or the probity of language as creator of space

Dichotomy

[740 entries from 81 countries were submitted in 2015. The full archive will be available soon.]  Far to the North, in the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard, lies the deserted Russian coal-mining settlement of Pyramiden. Formerly a prosperous community and a model of Russian endeavor and enterprise in the Arctic, all was brought to a sudden halt with the abrupt closure of its mines in the spring of 1998. Over the next two months, the entire settlement was evacuated, leaving behind an entire town as if frozen in time. In a Norwegian as well as an international context, Pyramiden represents a unique cultural heritage site, tracing the century-old mining traditions of Svalbard‘s recent past. Moreover, from the early wooden dwellings of the original Swedish settlers to the Soviet-era planning ideals, its architecture reflects the changing tides of history that have shaped the town in its wake. And as it was then, so it remains today, as the town and its surroundings continue to be shaped by a very distinct set of conditions, not only related to the local environmental and climatic extremes, but also in terms of the overall economic, political, and cultural circumstances that currently impact on the Arctic region as a whole. Today, Pyramiden remains a deserted town, but for a few hardened locals who welcome the occasional tourists to its harbor. Nevertheless, for all its desolate character and sheer isolation, the majestic scene of its glacial surroundings imparts on it a serene quality, as if waiting, one day, to be brought back to life.

Preserving Pyramiden

remember work?

Axis of Pyramiden

The Frozen Dream of Pyramiden

[609 entries from 75 countries were submitted in 2014. The full archive will be available soon.]  This year, 120 HOURS is questioning how architecture can facilitate social activity and environmental awareness through its presence as object(s) on the festival grounds of the Norwegian Øya Music Festival. We want to challenge you, as architecture students, to rethink the relationship between sustainability and architecture contrary to the common understanding of sustainability as a cosmetic or engineering concern. We want you to design an icon, that exemplifies architectures potential impact as signifier and communicator to the general public. Sustainable architecture is not in itself an isolated topic. Sustainability and environmental provisions are established components of any project architects venture into. Nevertheless, we still see a tendency in architecture to consider sustainability as a substitute for architectural expression. The cliché that “green” architecture has to be green in materiality and color is limiting the incredible inherent potential of truly sustainable architecture. For 120 HOURS 2014, we want you to explore sustainability as a tool for critical thinking. The project must engage with and challenge the public, to raise social consciousness on alternative approaches to environmental challenges, local as well as global.

Architecture and Spectacle

Architecture

Music Stars

The Greenest Red Festival

[249 entries from 41 countries were submitted in 2013. The full archive will be available soon.]  Juxtaposition of natural wonder and man-made spectacle was at the center of the third edition. The influx of cruise ships into Norwegian fjords has resulted in an extremely particular conundrum; tourists flock to experience the serenity of the fjords, but simply through the act of traveling into the fjord on massive cruise ships, the allure of the fjord is broken. Tourists complain about the yellow smoke obscuring the view for their photos, while lounging in deckchairs. Can architecture resolve this dilemma with a structure that is mutually beneficial?

Architecture vs. Nature

Untitled

The Geiranger Hug Promenade

Geiranger Deep Dock

1 city / 2 scales

[59 entries from 14 countries were submitted in 2012. The full archive will be available soon.]  For the second edition, 120 HOURS went to the city of Trondheim, a historic city with a prestigious university in the middle of Norway. The task was focused on the use of urban “junk space” and student housing. An area of multiple narrow courtyards in the city center was given as potential sites for housing, all introverted places with very limited natural qualities that challenged participants to develop architecture without facade, focused on adaptability and conscious transformation of historic urban settings.

City Students

Crossing the Courtyard

Pollinated Privacy

Hide and Seek

[50 entries from 8 countries were submitted in 2011. The full archive will be available soon.]  The very first edition of 120 HOURS was focused on urban space and the activation of dead zones in the city. The site in question, Tullinløkka, is located in the center of Oslo between two major museums and has been subject for debate and neglected for 125 years. The task was to activate the space with minimal intervention, and to focus on social and environmental sustainability.

Lost Opportunities

Urban Cultivation

Tullinmuren

En ny vår på Tullinløkka