Georgia

Vernacular extensions of modernist buildings have been created since the 1990s as an organic response to the new, “lawless” times after the fall of the Soviet Union. They increase the living space and are usually used as terraces, extra rooms, open refrigerators,It is said that a Russian journalist named them “kamikaze,” drawing a parallel between the romantic and suicidal character of such an endeavour and the typical ending of most Georgian family names “-adze.” This architecture also refers back to the local palimpsestic building technique, which since the Middle Ages has allowed new houses to be built on top of existing ones on the steep slopes of the Caucasus Mountains, thus not monumentalisation of the past but expanding on it for the future. Three residence from different flat which have extensions tell their stories, why they decide to build it and how they use this part of house. The facades of all these types of buildings look chaotic, but from the inside they are all ordered.

Denmark

A short film about the add-on shelf on Copenhagen's public trash bins, for people to collect cans. This film highlights the inclusivity of the design and its impact on the users.

United Kingdom

Ilford is a diverse and growing neighbourhood of London. Access to green and public spaces in the heart of Ilford however, is greatly compromised. According to the English Indices of Multiple Deprivation, it features amongst the 10% most deprived areas for access to high quality local living environment. Wilderness Street is a temporary living urban landscape which was installed in Oakfield Road in Ilford in 2022, launching the town centre as a cultural destination at London's north-eastern fringe. Before large-scale urbanisation started from the C19, the Ilford, Barkingside and Hainault area was characterised by forests, fields and meadows. Our design strategy seeks to temporarily revive these lost landscapes. We have selected Uphall Camp Beacon, the former Royal Forest of Hainault and the Essex Grazing Marshes as blueprints for plant species and landscape character to be replicated by our proposal for Oakfield Road. The project advocates for the preservation of ancient natural landscapes and their role in maintaining biodiversity and supporting well-being. The legacy strategy will see all planting including trees and shrubs given away to community organisations and Ilford residents at the end of the project. Enticing local people to adopt the plants will see elements of the ancient Essex landscape re-instated in public places in Ilford, in peoples gardens, front gardens, planters and allotments.

France

The relationships change in a house while the wifi is disconnected.

Albania

The film aims to portrait The New Bazaar: a modern public space; a lively scene with many happenings; inclusive for the people; a space that makes no seggregation between those who visit. But as you look at it, the design itself has no link with the Old Bazaar: the booming point of the whole city of Tirana, that has existed for over 300 years, and was demolished in 1959. As you walk around, the glass structure reflects the old mosque, an element that recalls the fact that before the new buildings composed this space, less than a hundred years ago, other buildings, another bazaar lived there, and they shaped the collective memory of the habitants. But there is no other sign. No translation of the history into the design itself. The film tends to implicate the fact that the new bazaar as a public space has proven to be successful in terms of inclusivity for the people. But it is just as important for the design to represent the history of the old bazaar, which people cared about and remember with nostalgia, but risks to be just a vague memory, and for which new generations 100 years from now will have no idea about.

Albania

What we see with our eyes, we make with our hands is an Albanian proverb, reflecting on our film's main subject: architecture without architects. More specifically our subject is the builders themselves, through the story of Besnik, a halal butcher, who also built together with his friends a bar in the informal settlement of Bathore, on the outskirts of Tirana. His story represents how people left alone by centralised building and housing policies can make their own architecture, infrustructure and urbanism, and find functionality, pride and beauty without adhering to ideals and rules of professional planning. The film was made by buhera klub, a collective consisting of Anna Seress and Anna Zsoldos.