February 1–10, 2017
Who’s afraid of yellow, purple and pink?
A black-and-white photograph of Richard Buckminster Fuller, teaching architecture students at CEPT University, India, appeared on a cinema screen in the heart of Madrid. 800 people watched.
The image was the final part of the 2015 version of Archiprix International, a bi-annual competition for the best graduate projects in the field of architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. Bucky’s image was a logical part of the presentation to announce and welcome everybody for the Archiprix International 2017 at CEPT, the first ever to be held in South Asia. It also underlined exploring tactility and “Making Habitat” has long been a part of CEPT didactics.
While the world of architects and designers started to get ready for the next edition, CEPT University’s Dean of Architecture, Anne Feenstra’s challenge was to get India ready. The first step in this journey was an exhibition at CEPT of all the nominated projects of Madrid. The combination of yellow, the identity color of the Spanish edition, and a 3D extrusion of Buckminster Fuller’s dymaxion world map, became the Yellow Box, an exhibition that drew students, faculty and hundreds of outsiders from all over India.
The excitement generated was evident in the record-breaking number of 385 participants, who send in their graduate project. The international jury, with Bimal Patel, Frida Escobedo, Yttje Feddes, Marina Tabassum and Steve Smith, faced a challenging task of nominating 23 projects for the HunterDouglas Awards.
The 2017 edition will exhibit 2300 panels and all the nominated projects will have an architectural model made in a dedicated CEPT Winter School course. This time the main colors will be purple and pink. There will be workshops, lectures, music, dance, crafted clothes on show, the award ceremony and delicious Gujarati food.
It is all going to happen between February 1–10, 2017, against the dramatic backdrop of Balkrishna Doshi’s Faculty of Architecture building and the brand new CEPT library by Rahul Mehrotra.
Archiprix International in India will be a purple and pink cultural roller coaster.
Fear not and step on board!
