The theme of this year’s Trimo Urban Crash competition, which is intended for students of architecture and design, was to design a self-sufficient, multipurpose bike base, comprising a maximum of three Trimo modular units.

Trimo Urban Crash is a biennial international competition for architecture and design students, which seeks to encourage aspiring designers of urban space towards bolder thinking and encourage them towards unrestricted expression and creatively adapt the urban environment via the use of the most contemporary building materials and structures.

The competition is a project whose purpose is to demonstrate the usability and adaptability of Trimo products through the implementation of the best solutions. Trimo Urban Crash does not award a monetary prize; the first prize in the competition is the implementation of the winning design on the tendered theme for the actual users at the set location in Ljubljana and an all-expense paid summer school term at a renowned school of architecture for the winner. The competition finalists are rewarded with participation in professional excursions and workshops in Slovenia and are showcased in a catalogue. To promote competition participants, all works contributed are published on the Trimo Urban Crash website.

The theme of this year’s competition was to design a self-sufficient, multipurpose bike base, comprising a maximum of three Trimo modular units. The location selected for the bike base was the Bavarski dvor area at the end of the Dunajska cesta arterial road on the fringes of the city centre, where there is a wide pavement with a broad cycle lane on the lower level and landscaped greenery above. Upon entry to the narrow downtown area, the first bike base in the city should provide appropriately managed space and shelter for:

• a place for cyclists’ refreshment and rest,
• bike servicing and repair,
• free wireless internet connection,
• charging points for computers, notebooks and mobile phones,
• charging points for electric bicycles and motorcycles

Or, as was written by jury member Janez Bertoncelj, “Cyclists need a non-profit, cheap bike repair shop, where ordinary people can bring in bicycles needing repair or maintenance so that volunteers teach them the required repair skills for breakdowns on the road and for at-home repairs; where they can pump their tyres up, see adverts for bike events or have a cup of coffee watching the video of the latest cycling peloton. Container architecture, in its simple form and clean aesthetic, just like a bicycle, can successfully meet all these needs”.

The positioning of the object on site and possible additional content was left up to the discretion of competition participants.

This year’s competition solutions were assessed by an international professional jury comprising: Adam Kalkin, artist and architect from the USA, Angela Van Der Kloof, sustainable mobility adviser from the Netherlands, Ron Fitch, designer at TRIMO Group UK from Great Britain, Michael Stacey, architect, professor at Nottingham University from the UK, Wojtek Nowak, winner (with Martynika Bielawska) of Trimo Urban Crash 2011 from Poland and Jure Kotnik, architect, Janez Bertoncelj, cycling co-ordinator at the City of Ljubljana, Maja Lapajne, marketing director at TRIMO Group, Mitja Vovko, architect at TRIMO Group and Janez Koželj, City of Ljubljana Deputy Mayor, full professor at the Faculty of Architecture, all from Slovenia.

The tender for this year’s competition attracted 220 designs from 37 countries. In their assessment and final selection of competition entries, the jury followed these criteria:

• innovation in the application of Trimo products which should cover at least 50 % of the façade cladding,
• understanding of modular construction and the method of assembling accommodation units,
• consistent design adaptation of the object to Trimo technology,
• inventive and functional solution and sense of placement on site,
• creative morphology of the basic components,
• safety of the object,
• simplicity of implementation, assembly, disassembly and universal use of the object,
• the rationality of the investment from the point of view of the object’s life cycle,
• sustainability of the design in terms of the heating, cooling, ventilation in self sufficiency of the object,
• innovative and functional design of the interior and exterior space, with emphasis on the simple use of services offered by the programme of the object,
• possible siting of the object with minimal adaptation in any cycle-friendly city.

A total of 33 projects were shortlisted by the jury, from which six proposals were put forward for awards and three for jury prizes. The expert jury also determined that the tender organiser should also arrange a public vote for a people’s prize. The winning design therefore received awards from both the general public and the jury.

By decision of the jury, first prize was won by the JCSB0 design
Authors: Jorge Lopez Sacristan, Christina Codjambopoulo, Beatriz Gomez Martin, Jorge Lopez Sacristan, and Sara Rebollo. Mentor: Eva-Maria Pape. Faculty: Fachhochschule Cologne. Country: Germany

By public vote, the CG2BP design was chosen
Authors: Ignacio Chavero García, Roberto Baños Pantoja, Alvaro Borrego Plata, Ignacio Chavero García
Mentor: L. Salazar MAC, Faculty: ETSA Seville, Country: Spain

By selection of the expert jury and public vote, the competition winner was the SHIFT design
Authors : Manus Leung, Kacper Krywult, Faculty: the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of New South Wales and the Faculty of Architecture and Warsaw University of Technology, Countries: Australia and Poland.