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And the Winners Are...

First prize was awarded to Sam Rajamanickam from Design Collective Inc. of the United States for his entry Cotton Club by Francis Ford Coppola.

The Cotton Club was one of America's most famous nightclubs in the 1920s and 30s. Most of the greatest black entertainers of the day played there, including Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.

Coppola's film, The Cotton Club (1984), uses the nightclub as a backdrop for a tale of gangsters and entertainers. The story is peppered with the Jazz music that made it famous. Rajamanickam's model literally sets the stage for his vision of the club.

Second Prize went to the team of Marcel Schuler, Patrick Schmid, and Guido Zimmermann of Fachhochschule Aargau, Switzerland, for The Ministry of Truth.

In Orwell's modern classic of "negative Utopia," he depicts a gray world dominated by Big Brother and his vast network of agents suffocating freedom in a totalitarian world in which news is manufactured according to the will of the authorities.

Third prize, also for The Ministry of Truth, went to Gabor Osvath, Attila Vocsa, and Bojka Pehlivanova of GYAR Ltd, Hungary.

Both teams have created models of their vision of how the Ministry of Truth would look from inside and out.

Putting the Software on Stage

Through its annual competition, Graphisoft promotes its "virtual building" concept in architectural design and practice. Entrants submitted ArchiCAD plan files, color renderings, QuickTime VR scenes, and animations to convey their design intent to the jury.

Jury members included Jerry Laiserin, FAIA, contributing editor of Architectural Record; Zahid Sardar, architecture and design editor of the San Francisco Chronicle; Jean-Pierre Cousin, technical editor of Architecture d'Aujourd'hui; Catherine Slessor, managing editor of The Architectural Review; and Christian Schittich, editor-in-chief of Detail.

This was the first year in which students and professionals vied for the same prizes because jurors in previous years observed that there was no difference in professionalism, creativity, and overall quality between the two categories of submissions.

Rajamanickam's prize-winning interpretation of Cotton Club. Image: Sam Rajamanickam The Cotton Club. Image: Sam Rajamanickam Second Prize went to the team of Marcel Schuler, Patrick Schmid, and Guido Zimmermann of Fachhochschule Aargau, Switzerland. Image: Marcel Schuler, Patrick Schmid, and Guido Zimmermann The Swiss entry, "The Ministry of Truth," was inspired by George Orwell's novel 1984. Image: Marcel Schuler, Patrick Schmid, and Guido Zimmermann The Ministry of Truth. Image: Marcel Schuler, Patrick Schmid, and Guido Zimmermann Third prize went to Gabor Osvath, Attila Vocsa, and Bojka Pehlivanova of GYAR Ltd., Hungary. Image: Gabor Osvath, Attila Vocsa, and Bojka Pehlivanova The Hungarian prize winners also modeled The Ministry of Truth. Image: Gabor Osvath, Attila Vocsa, and Bojka Pehlivanova The Ministry of Truth. Image: Gabor Osvath, Attila Vocsa, and Bojka Pehlivanova   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.