And the winner of the first-ever Streetlife Design Competition is…

The Belgian team of architect Aikaterini Ntavou and landscape designer Laura Peralta has won the first edition of the Streetlife Design Competition for the project ‘Rebirth: A Food's Tale’. The competition is a joint initiative by Streetlife and Land

Twelve teams participated in the final of the Streetlife Design Competition and presented their projects to the jury and the audience at the grand finale that took place on Friday evening, 24 March 2023. The competition aims to encourage young designers from various disciplines to follow careers in landscape architecture.

Participants were asked to form creative multi-disciplinary teams and focus on the theme of troubled ‘lost sites’. Each team had to select a challenging open space and significantly improve it by devising a landscape design solution and addressing a societal problem of its choice.

From the 70+ entries, the jury of professional experts shortlisted 12 projects for the final. The finalists pitched their projects to the jury and the audience during the closing live show. Among the prestigious guests were renowned landscape architects, representatives from landscape institutes and associations and national and international trade journals.

The jury concluded in its report that the winning project Rebirth: A Food's Tale – a lost site in Anderlecht – manages to revitalise a detached neighbourhood and can serve as a pilot for a bigger masterplan. The design successfully combines urban food production with social inclusiveness and, more broadly, reconnects the land with the water and creates new public spaces. It achieves many goals seemingly intertwined on an aesthetically confident site plan. The team envisions a different future on a small scale, suggesting new uses while establishing a fruitful and inviting space for social interaction as well as a platform for biodiversity. The project also acts as an advocate, raising awareness of the food production processes and healthy urban environment and illustrates an attractive, inspirational framework.

Second prize was awarded to the four landscape design students Alex Pontes de Albuquerque, Isabelle Caroline de Freitas, Mayara Ledo Mendes and Mariana Coelho Andrade Horta for the project ‘The Golden Connection’, based on the development of a site in Porto (Portugal). Third prize went to landscape design and architecture students Steffy Chammanikkodath, Lucie Delacoste and Federico Marchese from Rome for their project ‘RESURFACING – designing with instability’.

Three projects in Dublin, London and The Hague received honourable mentions, and cash prizes were handed over to the six winning teams.

The expert jury was surprised by the high standard of the entries and included Julie Bargmann (D.I.R.T., USA), Jenny Osuldsen (Snøhetta, Norway), Eric Manfrino (LAND’ACT, France), Antje Stokman (Hafencity University, Germany) and directors from the organisation behind the event. The geographical spread of the projects was also impressive, with a third located in North America and two thirds in Europe. At least two of the finalists came from the several training institutes which included the competition on their curricula.

Due to the international desire to generate a greener and more liveable climate-resilient environment, the success of this first edition is expected to be repeated in two years' time. The competition encourages young talent to make a positive impact on the planet by working on critical issues in the field of landscape architecture.

To view the winners and all the entries, please visit: streetlifedesigncompetition.com