The National Palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti has shaped and been shaped by the geopolitical history of the modern world. Destroyed in the 2010 earthquake, this site has a tumultuous history which has seen the likes of Simon Bolivar, colonial governors, and rebel armies pass through its environs. Today it is surrounded by a camp of homeless and displaced people, and it is unclear what will happen to the site in the future. The complex relationship between its historical influences, the current political climate and presence of international actors has been explored in this research design competition.
The aim of this competition was to explore how a designer can respond to the cultural, environmental and political conditions at the centre of the world’s biggest disaster so far this millennium. It is unlikely to be built, but it was aimed to break creative boundaries critiquing the situation and provide solutions to some of the problems identified on the site.
We received numerous proposals providing conceptual proposals for the National Palace that combined its official function of office and residence of the President and its relationship to the informal settlements and communities in its environs. There was a valuable variety of approaches to address the many political and social issues contained within the competition brief. Click here to download the full brief.
A shortlist of submissions were invited to present their work to a panel of expert judges at our Open House last month, to read more about the event and for a synopsis of the shortlisted submissions visit our HQ blog.
Submissions were judged on research potential, innovation, creativity and evidence of an understanding of the situation in the design response. Given the limited information available on the site, the judges were impressed with the richness of ideas generated in the proposals. After deliberation the judges selected Sheffield School of Architecture as the winners, chosen for their site wide approach that reached beyond a purely architectural solution.
A number of themes emerged but the panel considered that Sheffield School of Architecture most appropriately addressed the interplay between the social and political, maintaining the historical significance of the site but also making it a vehicle for social and economic regeneration. They were particularly impressed with their closing slogan: “growth with care”. There was also a very sensitive awareness of the need to commemorate the past event of the earthquake and the lives it claimed, while simultaneously looking forward to a better future.
Winners received a selection of influential humanitarian architecture books and their work is now on the Article 25 website, blog and RIBA Knowledge Community for Development and Disaster Relief. Download their submission here.
