Architecture is defined by connections: the method and the material by which an assembly is developed to create enclosure. This process results in an active, performative connection, one that is specific and definitive and produces an architecture that can be built through iterative means. REPEAT asks that you look first to the connection and through repetition to define the whole. In brief, by reevaluating the design process and looking at it from the connection, what emerges?

REPEAT as an international competition is established to foster the creative spirit in the burgeoning field of digital fabrication. We encourage the generation of cutting edge design proposals for a structure of your design with the only caveats being it be generated and conceived digitally, incorporate repetitive elements, be optimized for relocation and transportation and be produced through fabrication technologies available within Houston, Texas.

Within cities with atomized light manufacturing capabilities like Houston, there exists a potential for designers to engage fabrication via direct communication with machines. A culture of making that has its foot in the energy and aerospace industries is ready to be appropriated and applied to architecture. The competition challenges the current exploration of parametric design to engage this latent field of production to explore a meaningful synthesis based on repetition and variation.

The evaluation of all the REPEAT proposals will focus on the cohesion of the design concept to digital fabrication techniques and methods of assembly. Factoring in these two foundational requirements for the competition, the entrant is encouraged to propose a solution that is both formally challenging in the mechanics and aesthetics of the connections, but also speak to the issues of use and performance.

Jury: Patrik Schumacher, Marc Fornes, Lisa Iwamoto, Chris Lasch and Blair Satterfield