This competition seeks to investigate through research and design, any notion of plastic-OPACITY in or with concrete. It asks participants to embrace and explore opportunities implied by the dual and combined qualities of plasticity and opacity without particularly pinning down the literal or exact meaning of each property but allowing the pluralistic and phenomenal implications of both. ‘Traditional’ design criteria as programme, location, context, scale and so on, may be added freely by participants in order to structure their research and enhance the potential of their application. These can be derived from recent school projects such that the competition aims blend with current curricula as basis. Results of these explorations have to be presented through proposals that are ‘design-led’ – be it architectural, structural or otherwise – in order to reveal their relevance and merits by application. The proposals may range from objects, furniture, buildings and architectural details to housing, landscape interventions and other large-scale projects.

The judging criteria for entries will be framed by both the goal and means of the proposals.