Living Ruins II – Ghost Village of Dereiçi Competition

The Living Ruins II contest has assigned designers the task of envisioning the ghost town of Dereiçi in Turkey as a vibrant outdoor museum. Although the village has been deserted, it still possesses tremendous cultural and historical significance. The aim is to turn its ruins into a site where slow tourism, contemplation, and a connection to the past are welcomed.

The competition through its themes focuses on the acceptance of decay and memory as things that are not only to be tolerated but even regarded as advantages instead of drawbacks. By means of the pathways, installations, and a visitor centre, the participants will support the non-intrusive architectural intervention upholding the Dereiçi revival. The ambition is to not to obliterate the ruins but to grant them the new life.

Competition Overview

The designers will have to come up with a museographic scheme that seamlessly integrates the existing old structures with modern architectural features. The design has to comprise walking paths, instruction materials and a new building for the public. The visitor centre will act as the main location for the cultural programs, tourism, and heritage activities.

The competition brief opens up a field for the most original and creative solutions. The designer can suggest one or more routes that go through the village, connecting the areas with the architectural interventions that are in sync with the original fabric. The interventions are to be with the ruined landscape, not against it.

Timeline

Entry Fees

Awards

Architectural & Design Analysis

The conflict of the past and the present building is the main thought of the competition. And the designers must decide very carefully: to save the old ruins and at the same time to build new ones. The idea behind the whole process is not to overpower the other side but to be in harmony.

Material choices are to be made taking into account that they will be lightweight, easily reversible, and sustainable. The visitor centre could be made of local stone, wood, and glass so that it would be in sympathy with the ruins. The paths and the installations would be merely a part of the natural flow of the terrain. The museographic scheme should be the one that dictates how the visitors go, rest, and think.

Participants can suggest ways to decelerate tourist flow and facilitate extremely interactive and meaningful involvement by designing paths that go through the village. The architectural part of the intervention should be such that it allows tourism but at the same time does not make the past disappear.

Project Importance

It’s an important lesson for designers through this competition that abandoned heritage is not a waste, it is a source. The transformation of Dereiçi will bear the fruits of cultural tourism, of the local economy, and of heritage preservation. The project will foster slow tourism and a larger appreciation for the ruins.

This challenge is very much in point because it is taking place at a time when many heritage sites around the world are facing decay and neglect. It is offering the possibility of contributing to architectural thinking through conservation, adaptive reuse, and even cultural regeneration. The proposals might be turned into guidelines of how to treat and engage with forgotten places.

✦ ArchUp Competition Review

The Living Ruins II Ghost Village of Dereiçi competition, an international event, spotlights heritage conservation and adaptive reuse, welcoming students, professionals along with multidisciplinary teams to propose a museographic intervention through ruins imposition of new architectural components like pathways, installations, and visitor centers with awards from the first prize to third prize and honorable mention, plus clear registration, and submission deadlines. The organizer showcases its heritage hospitality and the jury consists of architects & educators, although full transparency regarding evaluation criteria could be better. Requirements are practical, rewards are sufficient, and the contest promotes both academic and professional involvement. To sum up, the competition is a well-structured challenge that may facilitated talents seeking to explore the field of cultural regeneration.

Conclusion

The Living Ruins II contest is a one-of-a-kind chance to breathe life again into a ghost town via clever design. It compels the contestants to be history teachers, to let the ruins speak, and to make places for people to communicate with both the past and the present.

Designers are urged to come up with imaginative ideas that are not only celebrating deterioration but also creating significant architecture and promoting slow tourism. The heritage through this contest is not only the past but the whole area of memory.

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