Celebrating 15 years of
Buildner competitions

Architecture competitions serve as a critical platform for advancing architectural discourse and producing original work that contributes to the field. They enable exploration of ideas that may not be possible within commercial practice and allow architectural and societal ideas to reach an international audience.

International architectural competitions are embraced as a parallel terrain of exploration, a place where ideas are free to be tested against demanding and speculative programs, distant from the pragmatics of commissioned work, yet fundamental to the studio’s ongoing architectural inquiry.

Because here, architecture behaves more like a question than an answer.

Architecture competitions provide a unique platform to question conventional practice and to explore ideas that may not yet have a place in commercial projects. They allow architects to engage with urgent global issues—such as sustainability, environmental trauma, and collective memory—without immediate constraints. For me, competitions are an opportunity to test speculative ideas about architecture’s role in ecological repair and to communicate these ideas through strong visual narratives that can reach a broader audience.

I regularly participate in international architecture competitions on various platforms, which gives me leadership experience and the opportunity to work with different teams and design approaches. Last year, I took part in five competitions: four projects were published, three received awards, and one is currently awaiting results. Competitions help me broaden my professional horizons, meet new people, stay connected with colleagues, former classmates, and architect friends, and receive direct feedback and advice from jury members. For me, this is one of the most effective ways to continuously develop and test my ideas within a strong international context! I think competitions provide a space to test ideas beyond commercial constraints and to work in interdisciplinary teams. They allow me to rethink familiar approaches and to engage with international professional discourse.

It provides a great opportunity to design architectural projects for building typologies that do not exist in my real-world work but that I deeply admire.

We participate in architecture competitions because they offer an opportunity to experiment with design thinking beyond the framework of academic studio projects. Competitions allow us to engage with social, cultural, and environmental issues on a broader scale, where architecture is not simply an exercise but a tool for questioning existing conditions and proposing potential solutions.

Competitions are a platform for experimentation and reflection - an opportunity to step outside the boundaries of commercial constraints and to test ideas that address deeper cultural, social, or existential questions. They invite architects to think freely, to engage with global issues through design, and to share new perspectives on what architecture can be. For me, competitions are not only about recognition but about rehearsing the future, exploring concepts that may later find resonance in real projects.

Architecture competitions provide a rare space for freedom and experimentation. They allow us to work without predefined answers and to approach architecture as a form of inquiry rather than a product. - For Below the Unseen, the competition format made it possible for us to address a difficult subject (memory, absence, and the long-term consequences of human actions) and allowed us to work with restraint, using light, depth, and reflection to construct an experience rather than a narrative. It offered the freedom to explore architecture as an act of witnessing, one that acknowledges the invisible consequences embedded in the ground and carried forward into the present. Competitions encourage collaboration, critical thinking, and the development of architectural narratives that might not emerge within the limits of everyday professional practice.

Taking part in architecture competitions is primarily about learning, discovering new ideas, and pushing ourselves beyond the limits of daily practice. They offer the freedom to experiment and evolve as designers. In this case, we view it as a meaningful chance to collaborate for the first time and to merge our individual perspectives and skills within a shared creative journey.