Jury comments
"Silicon Gulf has drawn together strong graphics, narrative, and design ideas that correspond clearly with one another and the site. The overall graphic representation is speculative, expressive, and of advanced quality. The relationships between the existing, spectacle, and collapse scenarios are explicit, as is the time frame and the reason the post-industrial site was chosen.
The existing scenario introduces the site with ingenious collage techniques that ground the proposal, with the location map haunting the image. The spectacle graphic consciously folds back into itself and expresses an inventive future design, while collapse is presented not as an opposition to spectacle, but a buoyant and hopeful alternative. The ‘collapse state’ also indicates a form of harmony between ecological processes and technological advances can emerge without large scale economical investment.
In each image, the relationships between nature and culture in the landscape evoke a strong sense of place. The judges especially liked the restrained colour scheme that resisted conforming with the idea of a ‘green’ spectacle, and instead enhanced the intensity of the site with a powerful overall effect."
2021 competition jury: Prof. Maria Ignatieva, University of Western Australia, Prof. Martin Bryant University of Technology Sydney and Emily Wong, Landscape Architecture Australia