Italian startup TerraViva Competitions launches Wildlife Pavilions

TerraViva Competitions launches Wildlife Pavilions, a new architecture contest that explores the potentialities of “Torbiere del Sebino” Reserve (Iseo, Italy), to come up with creative design proposals focused on nature.

TerraViva Competitions – a platform for organising international architecture competitions focused on sustainable urban regeneration projects. Stefano Lardera, Eugenia Bolla and Omar Rota are the co-founders of the Italian startup with a world vision from the first day.

The main idea of the project is to challenge the new generations of designers to think outside the box and to deal with the most current urban issues with a strategic vision.

Firmly believing that creativity is the most powerful tool to trigger new design practices and to feed the debate on present and future issues, TerraViva’s series of competitions aims to promote original projects with a conscious vision of environmental and social sustainability.

The competition “Wildlife Pavilions” proposes a paradigm shift: an architecture conceived to coexist in harmony with the landscape, mainly thought for nature itself instead of for human beings. The competition’s goal is to think out of the box and imagine inhabited structures designed for flora and fauna: micro-architectures where man meets wildlife just as a passing guest, as a respectful visitor or simply as an observer.

To challenge anthropocentric architecture and experiment with a new creative process focused on nature, the contest requires the design of three small-scale pavilions immersed in the breathtaking landscape of the “Torbiere del Sebino” Nature Reserve.

Today, the only few structures present in the whole complex are just being used for bird watching, whereas the new devices will have to complement the existing ones with an additional feature: providing shelter to nature itself.

Located in the North of Italy between the provinces of Brescia and Bergamo, Lake Iseo – also known as “Sebino” – is the seventh lake by extension in the country and the fourth in the Lombardy region.

With its stunning landscape, particularly rich in naturalistic and historical heritage, this territory represents one of the most beautiful areas in Italy and one of the most popular among visitors and tourists. Towards the southern edge of the lake, the famous wine region known as “Franciacorta” is situated: a precious land characterised by a hilly topography sprinkled with small villages and covered by wonderful vineyards, where the presence of man perfectly blends with nature.

Today, numerous footprints left by the retreat of the ancient glacier responsible for the formation of this special environment are still clearly visible. One of the most significant, located on the southern coast, is where the sediments left after its melting rise to shape a morainic amphitheatre.

The encounter between this area and the lake’s shore gives life to an extraordinary ecosystem of unique environmental value: the “Torbiere del Sebino” Nature Reserve.

The competition is open to students, architects, designers, urbanists, engineers, artists, makers, activists and anyone interested in the fields of architecture and landscape design. Participants can join the competition either individually or with a team.

Prizes up to 7.000 € will be awarded to the winners selected by an international jury panel composed by:

• Zhang Ke | ZAO/standardarchitecture (Beijing, China)
• Nicola Russi | Laboratorio Permanente (Milan, Italy)
• Giulia Pozzi | Fabulism (Berlin, Germany)
• Jan van Dijk | Van Dijk Architects (Dundalk, Ireland)
• Alessandro Bonizzoni | Fosbury Architecture (Milan, Italy)
• Ana Babaya| Pesa Arquitectura (Rosario, Argentina)
• Samuel Gonçalves | Summary (Porto, Portugal)
• Stefania Capelli| Torbiere del Sebino (Brescia, Italy)

The intention is to go beyond the mere act of designing an observation cabin.

It means much more than that: Wildlife Pavilions is about providing support for bird nesting, new shelters for reptiles, containers to help the proliferation of autochthonous plants, insect hotels, sunbathing platforms and many more.

The key lies in conceiving a design proposal centred on nature, which, as a secondary function, allows visitors to observe wildlife in total respect of the ecosystem.

Download the full brief here.