2018 Best of Design Awards winner for Unbuilt – Public: The American Construct
Designer: Christopher Myefski
Location: American West
The American West has long captivated our collective imagination as a landscape of exploration and promise. Its vastness allows for vague scales, distended time, and clandestine programs. This isolated landscape is also home to the nation’s military arsenal, testing labs, and disposal sites. A road trip is its inevitable measure. Conceived by Myefski Architects, the American Construct project proposes a series of rest stops, situated between federal parkland and military territories, that conflate the scenic with the scene. Like the nationalistic constructions of early U.S. highway routes, these waypoints inscribe the sublime with experiential infrastructure, overlooks, and marginal territories. Power and pleasure occupy the same ground. Evidence and the evident conspire to remind and ultimately rearrange the construction of “America.”
Honorable Mentions
Project name: Urban Canopy
Designer: Buro Koray Duman
Location: New York
Project name: Anacostia Water Tower
Designer: Höweler + Yoon Architecture
Location: Washington, D.C.
