Buildner proudly announces the results of the Re:Form – New Life for Old Spaces competition, which invited architects and designers worldwide to reimagine existing, neglected, or abandoned spaces under 250 m² and give them renewed purpose through adaptive reuse and creative transformation.
The first annual Re-Form: New Life for Old Spaces competition challenged architects and designers from around the world to breathe new life into neglected and forgotten spaces. As an ideas competition, Re-Form offered complete freedom in site selection, encouraging bold reinterpretations of existing buildings under 250 m²—regardless of location, program, or typology. Whether reimagining an abandoned storefront in an urban neighborhood or transforming a crumbling warehouse in the countryside, participants were invited to explore how adaptive reuse can offer sustainable and socially meaningful alternatives to demolition and new construction.
This inaugural edition of Re-Form was met with an outstanding response, underscoring the growing global interest in sustainability-driven, community-focused reuse projects. Designers embraced the open framework of the brief to propose inventive interventions—some deeply contextual, others radically speculative—that demonstrate architecture’s power to turn overlooked structures into vibrant, functional spaces that serve contemporary needs.
The winning proposals represent a remarkable diversity of geographies, building types, and design approaches. The jury was particularly impressed by entries that challenged traditional notions of preservation, proposed new typologies for collective use, and addressed environmental concerns with precision and creativity. Re-Form confirms that the smallest of spaces, when thoughtfully reimagined, can become powerful agents of transformation within their urban or rural context.
The 1st Prize was awarded to Parisima Davoudi (United Kingdom) for a poetic intervention that transforms a desolate brick kiln landscape into a terrain of renewal through layers of shelter, planting, and social engagement. The 2nd Prize and Student Award went to Lee Hyunwoo and Lee Hyeonbok (Myongji University, South Korea) for Sinktopia, a retrofit that turns semi-basement dwellings into water-harvesting, food-producing community spaces.
The 3rd Prize was awarded to Damian Świerzbiński and Kamila Jagieniak (Poland) for It Started with Grain, reimagining a derelict grain silo as a vertical public pavilion celebrating history and ecology. The Sustainability Award went to Hwanseo Lee, Kuenwoo Park, and Hyeonjin Cho (Italy) for Phototropism Chimney, which transforms a disused warehouse into a light-driven, communal living and working hub.
Buildner is proud to share the results of this exciting first edition and celebrate the visionary designers behind the winning submissions.
1st Place
Edge of presence
Parisima Davoudi
United Kingdom
“We participate in architectural competitions not merely as arenas of rivalry, but as spaces for research and creative resistance. In a world where construction is often dictated by economic and political forces, competitions offer a rare opportunity to express ideas that might otherwise remain unbuilt or unheard. For us, each competition is a theoretical exercise — a chance to test the relationship between concept, material, and ethics in architecture. Through this process, projects become instruments of thought — reflections on the earth, memory, and our role in redefining a shared future.”
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JURY FEEDBACK summary
Set within a desolate brick kiln landscape on the periphery of a fractured society, this project proposes a deeply symbolic and restorative spatial intervention. It is organized through three conceptual layers: a hidden shelter embedded within the earth, a transitional zone of medicinal halophyte plants that thrive in harsh soil conditions, and a social presence layer expressed as a linear market for community use. The intervention transforms a marginalized terrain into a subtle topography of renewal—balancing concealment and exposure, memory and regeneration. Rather than imposing architectural form as spectacle, the project draws its power from absence, erosion, and soil. Materiality is kept elemental—sun-dried brick, reclaimed stone, and earthen walls—while a singular vertical marker on the horizon reclaims a visual identity for a forgotten place. The planting strategy, though restrained, underscores cycles of resilience in nature and community. With its spare but evocative drawings, sectional poetics, and haunting imagery, the proposal uses minimal means to render a powerful statement on land, identity, and quiet endurance.
2nd Place + Buildner Student Award
SINKTOPIA
Lee Hyunwoo, Lee Hyeonbok
South Korea
“We participate in competitions to embrace new challenges. Each architectural competition presents diverse themes that raise fresh questions, allowing us to look at architecture from new perspectives. This process helps us grow and develop further.”
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JURY FEEDBACK summary
Set in the context of South Korea’s vulnerable semi-basement dwellings—often stigmatized, flood-prone, and socially marginalized—this proposal reimagines the lowest levels of urban habitation as sites of environmental innovation and social renewal. Titled Sinktopia, the project introduces an architectural retrofit that transforms a standard banjiha unit into a water-harvesting, food-producing, community-serving node. At the heart of the intervention is a stormwater collection and purification system integrated below a raised access floor, enabling the repurposed space to serve as a smart farm and micro-marketplace. A formerly sealed facade is reopened to the street, creating a sunken courtyard and enhancing spatial permeability. Interior environments are characterized by controlled lighting, industrial clarity, and productive plant life—shifting the narrative from deprivation to dignity. The scheme is supported by a precise technical layout including plumbing diagrams, structural retrofits, and programmatic overlays, while photorealistic renderings humanize the space and demonstrate its lived potential. The result is an architecturally grounded, socially conscious proposition that addresses climate resilience and urban inequality through localized, small-scale transformation.
3rd Place
It started with grain
Damian Świerzbiński, Kamila Jagieniak
Poland
“Competitions provide us with freedom to think boldly, to test ideas that may not yet have a place in everyday commissions. They are laboratories where creativity meets discipline, and where young voices can be heard on an international stage. For us, it is also a way of learning – by pushing our limits, by comparing our work with others, and by engaging in current discourses shaping architecture globally.”
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JURY FEEDBACK summary
This project reclaims and reinterprets a post-industrial relic—a grain silo in Poland. Titled ‘It Started with Grain’, the proposal transforms a derelict grain tower into a vertical public pavilion, evoking the symbolic and literal significance of grain as a foundational element of civilization. The intervention operates as both a spatial archive and a cultural commentary, inviting visitors to ascend through layers of history and meaning. Each level—rooted in metaphors of botanical growth (roots, stem, head)—offers a distinct spatial experience, from immersive installations to seeds exhibitions and contemplation chambers. The surrounding site is reactivated with landscape gestures and educational programming, while the architecture itself becomes a vessel for self-reflection and environmental awareness. Presented with a richly layered graphic style, the board integrates historical references, axonometrics, architectural drawings, and atmospheric interior views, all embedded within a timeline-framed visual language that contextualizes the proposal in Poland’s socio-political past and ecological future.
Buildner Sustainability Award
Phototropism Chimney
Hwanseo Lee, Kuenwoo Park, Hyeonjin Cho
Italy
“Competitions give us the chance to share our ideas and test our methodology in a wider context. They are both an opportunity to communicate and a way to grow as architects.”
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JURY FEEDBACK summary
Phototropism Chimney envisions the transformation of a disused warehouse in Lagonegro into a hybridized space of residence, co-working, and communal gathering. Anchored by the metaphor of phototropism—plants’ orientation toward light—the design channels light and energy through a central vertical chimney, organizing space around solar orientation and thermal performance. The proposal overlays contemporary programmatic needs atop the existing industrial structure, choreographing zones of privacy and collectivity while maximizing daylight, passive heating/cooling, and re-use of embodied resources. Solar studies and environmental diagrams inform decisions such as window placement, aluminum shading systems, and the integration of rainwater harvesting and recycled materials. The architectural language respects the building’s historic character while activating it for 21st-century living.
HONORABLE MENTION
Earthen Sanheyuan Regeneration
Jun-Kai Tseng
Taiwan
“This competition offers a valuable platform to explore and test ideas that matter to me—particularly those related to sustainability, local identity, and material reuse. I see competitions as an opportunity not only to express design concepts, but to challenge conventional practices and propose systems that are more rooted in context. Through this project, I want to demonstrate that architecture doesn’t have to rely on advanced technologies or expensive resources. Sometimes, the most meaningful spaces come from simple, overlooked materials—like local soil or agricultural waste—transformed thoughtfully to serve people and place”
HONORABLE MENTION
Nest of Clouds
Xin Gao, Jian Huang
China
HONORABLE MENTION
RE: STATION
Hami Bae
South Korea
“I participate in architectural competitions because they provide a valuable opportunity to challenge myself creatively and explore new ideas. They help me to grow as a designer, allowing me to engage with diverse perspectives and address real-world problems in meaningful ways. I ultimately see them as valuable experiences that contribute to my professional development and my passion for impactful architecture.”
HONORABLE MENTION
Ripe Time
Sechang Oh, Hwang Miri
South Korea
HONORABLE MENTION
ART CENTER / Guild arts
Nataliia Murashova, Mariia Knutova
Belgium
“For us, architecture competitions are an opportunity to test ideas, explore new contexts, and push the boundaries of our practice. They provide an opportunity to be part of a wider architectural community, exchange ideas, and learn from different approaches. Through these interactions, we not only contribute to the profession but also grow as individuals. Competitions allow us to develop our skills and expand our expertise by working on projects of various scales and types beyond our everyday commissions. Even if a project is not realized, the experience strengthens our methodologies and generates knowledge that we can apply in future projects. Finally, architecture competitions provide a space for collaboration, research, and creativity, which makes them an integral part of our professional growth.”
HONORABLE MENTION
Heritage in bloom
Sebastián Javier Blanco Sagrera
Uruguay
SHORTLISTED PROJECTS
