THIRD PRIZE WINNER!
Ștefan Jurcă & Hlib Novosolov
Switzerland
My name is Ștefan Jurcă and I am originally from Romania. I have studied architecture in Munich and in Paris and I currently work as an architectural designer in Switzerland. What I want to achieve through architecture is to explore the meeting point between traditional construction methods and the newest technologies in architecture.
My name is Hlib Novosolov (Глеб Новосёлов), I come from Odessa, Ukraine. I have studied at the technical universities of Aachen, Munich and Milan. During my bachelor studies I have worked at the department of structural design as a research assistant, where I developed an interest in lightweight and dynamic structures.
Interview with the Winner
Introduction
My name is Hlib Novosolov (Глеб Новосёлов), I come from Odessa, Ukraine. I have studied at the technical universities of Aachen, Munich and Milan. During my bachelor studies I have worked at the department of structural design as a research assistant, where I developed an interest in lightweight and dynamic structures.
My name is Ștefan Jurcă and I am originally from Romania. I have studied architecture in Munich and in Paris and I currently work as an architectural designer in Switzerland. What I want to achieve through architecture is to explore the meeting point between traditional construction methods and the newest technologies in architecture.
We have met while working together at an office in Basel, Switzerland. We quickly discovered that we have similar design philosophies and views on the future of architecture, which inspired us to participate in architecture competitions as a team.
We chose to participate in the Off the Grid competition particularly, because it provides a high degree of design freedom with extremely interesting and challenging constraints. We both show interest in the topic of self-sustaining houses, and we were eager to dive further into the discourse.
Design Concept
Our initial idea was to maximize the energy efficiency of our house by using a spherical shape to minimize the surface-to-volume ratio. We designed a floor plan that uses as much internal volume as possible while being ergonomic for the inhabitants. To avoid using thick insulation, the building consists of two layers: an inner core with the heating element and the most crucial spaces, as well as a thermal buffer space around the inner core of the house. Consequently, the air and walls of the buffer space are insulating the inner one in a passive way.
Design Process
In order to create the transformable outer shell, we had to address a lot of challenges, such as structural integrity in combination with light weight and absence of complicated mechanisms. We discovered that origami can be used to address all these considerations due to the fact it does not need panels to bend, it provides bracing in multiple directions and can be operated manually. We then moved onto building physical models of the outer shell using countless crease patterns. We eventually stopped on Yoshimura pattern due to its ease of unfolding and structural stiffness. We then used visual programming (Grasshopper + Oricut) to simulate different scales, specific shapes and numbers of Yoshimura cells of our pattern until we found the perfect one.
Another challenge of the project was understanding how the size of the furniture, space and the outer shell impacts the perceived size of the house and the inhabitant’s comfort. We used a virtual reality headset combined with the Enscape real-time renderer to walk, sit, climb and tackle the heights, widths and lengths of all items.
Advice for Aspiring Designers
For aspiring designers passionate about sustainable design and innovation, I would advise taking risks and embracing a strong, radical, original concept. Explore ideas to their extreme and test their limits. Other than in real architecture projects, idea competitions focus less on feasibility and costs and more on opening discussion on certain topics and showcasing the potential of sustainable design.
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