Landscapes are gateways into other worlds.

Shifting Landscapes explores new collaborative forms of coexistence, born from the shifting contexts they sit within, inviting provocative and environmentally conscious architecture. 

Coexistence is not a fixed condition, but rather a continuous negotiation between people, structures, geographies, systems, ecologies and time. It implies proximity and tension, shared ground and differing needs.

This year, Ireland will be our testing ground – specifically, a 170km corridor between Dublin and Belfast: a line cutting through visible and invisible thresholds and conditions, overlapping contrasting sovereignties, infrastructures and land uses. This terrain is shaped by ever-changing weather, embedded with deep social and political forces and mythical cultural narratives, and layered with memories of labour, ownership and identity. It also holds quiet, often overlooked forms of coexistence: shared landscapes, parallel economies, collective rituals and interdependent systems. We will question how architecture might respond to these environments with care and curiosity.

Shifting in scale this year, the unit will develop generous and resilient civic architecture. We will design buildings as landscapes, learning from the environments we will experience first-hand. We will develop social and physical building ecosystems, as well as an understanding of natural construction materials and the potential of environmental conditions, emerging from close observation and a clear methodology. We encourage individual and diverse ideas and approaches, progressively tested over the year through large-scale models and experimental drawings. 

Here, architecture becomes a way to read and rework relationships. Coexistence invites projects that unsettle, reimagine and reconstruct how we live, together, across difference and through the evolving landscapes we inhabit.