Results of the Young Bird Plan 2018 On the Frontier Toilet Competition

January 14, 2019, Young Bird Plan 2018 “On the frontier” Toilet Design International Competition held its award ceremony after 3 months’ submissions collection. This competition attracted 1287 participants from 31 countries, which arouse great influence around the world. The award ceremony was held in Tongji University, Shanghai, China where Top 3 winners rivaled for the title of champion.

This event was organized by Young Bird Plan, an international competition platform and Dongpeng Group and supported by school of architecture and urban planning of Tongji University and Association of Future Architects Tongji University and Shanghai Jiaotong University. Many professional architects and interdisciplinary elite attended this meeting including famous landscape architect Hasegawa Itsuko, Chinese architects Yuyang Liu and Hai’ao Zhang, executive director of Dongpeng Group Yin He, general manager of Bathroom Design Service Department of Dongpeng Group Lixin Yang, director of the Professional Committee of Public Toilet Construction Management affiliated with China Association of Urban Environment Sanitation Fache Gao, Vice-chairman of CPPCC in Yongchuan District Daihua Zhong, founder of Young Bird Plan Isa Ye and so on.

The Emerging Design Power Improves the Quality of Rural Construction
At the beginning, Dong Yao, associate professor and president assistant of architecture and urban planning school made an opening speech.

Dongpeng Group, the co-organizer of this competition, keeps on its concept of science and technology, art and life. It expects to contribute to people’s life by supporting Chinese design with its pioneering materials and products. Yin He, executive director of Dongpeng Group, said in the ceremony that with the development of information technology and innovation of science and technology, globalization has improved people’s life which results in the revolution of ceramics industry and accordingly cool materials become colorful life and art. Living environment shows people’s lifestyle and consumption concept, so Dongpeng Group further explores and renovates fashionable products to create a new lifestyle for consumers. For example, pup-up house “Dongpeng Yuanshi Li” leads a new trend of home fashion, which also shows the charming of original stone. Dong Peng also supported Shanghai Immersive Art Exhibition, which makes it lead in the interdisciplinary trend. All in all, Dong Peng gradually becomes pioneering in the industry of home fashion.

Meanwhile, Yin said Dong Peng always focuses on product innovation and industrial guidance, while also fulfills its responsibilities and continues its public service business. Just as the topic “On the Frontier” shows, FRONTIER here means pioneering spirit and revolutionary awareness brought by this new era which is a gift for young designers, and at the same time, they shoulder the duties to boost the evolution of spaces. As a leader of public service industry, Dong Peng dare break the traditional rules and devotes itself to rural construction. And at the same time, it calls for more young talents to join in the construction of modern living environment.
Submissions in this competition are out of jury’s expectation which arouse hot discussion. In the ceremony, top 3 winners made their presentations and jury graded for each scheme. Finally, the work of Qing designed by Xing Li, Yunshan Huang and Yunfei Long won the champion.
According to the competition rules, Top 3 schemes will be built by Dongpeng Group, Yongchuan Government and PEARS Foundation.

Master’s Speech and Professional Forum Make the Event More Meaningful

Hasegawa Itsuko is a world-class landscape architect with a deep background of public architecture and she also won Royal Academy Architecture Prize. As the jury of this competition, she made a topic speech on architecture makes a different world——the birth of public architecture.

Hasegawa Itsuko believes design is a very subtle part of the whole construction process. So she hopes students can learn more about the construction progress from original conception to final construction by sharing her master work Niigata City Performing Arts Centre. She indicated that an architect should comprehensively analyze below elements: local culture, texture and structure, natural landscape, actual requirements and integration between functions and site unique.

Hasegawa Itsuko said architecture will grow, so sustainable development shall be considered during the architectural design, besides, elements including local life, culture and history and plants shall also be taken into account. Based on that, designers shall pay attention to the relationship among people, between human and cities, between human and nature.

When it comes to the forum on rural vitalization, Hasegawa Itsuko, Yuyang Liu, Hai’ao Zhang, Fache Gao, Daihua Zhong, Qian Li, Lixin Yang and Isa Ye (founder of Young Bird Plan) joined the discussion. They talked about how to participate in rural construction and how to improve the quality of rural construction.
Involved enterprise representatives and architects took part in rural construction activities before and they have accumulated related experience. Thus, they believe rural construction is to change the environment instead of building a house. On this topic, each guest expressed their own idea, such as “a small house may also win a big prize”, “basic construction will totally change rural environment” and “reconstruct villages with culture”.

Mr. Lixin Yang, general manager of Bathroom Design Service Department of Dongpeng Group said Dong Peng and Young Bird Plan seized this opportunity to push the rural construction under the trend of toilet revolution. Dongpeng expects to attract more young designers and offer more possibilities to reconstruct rural toilets in terms of sanitation, convenience, safety and energy-saving aspect. Rural vitalization is totally different from rural urbanization, and it will focus on the final construction and how to solve people’s problems. This time, top 3 schemes will be built in Yongchuan District, Chongqing and Dongpeng Group as the co-organizer will provide pioneering products and technological solution to push this activity.
Top 3 Schemes Concepts Sharing

Champion – Qing
Toilet is defined as restroom in English, as in western culture people enjoy a comfortable experience in a restroom. Therefore, designers of Qing hope to make the nasty toilet blank out behind greening surroundings, assimilate into nature and make it a landscape-style leisure piece.

The building is divided into three sections. The house is made up of three independent shear wall structure boxes arranged in a windmill shape. The lightly sloping roof is gently lifted and a small courtyard is enclosed. And the light shuttles freely between the gaps, forming a good toilet environment. By introducing space into the shear wall structure, the enclosed atmosphere of the box provides the user sufficient feeling of privacy and security. The wooden platform extends out of the pedestal around the building, providing a good place to watch the scenery and relax for the farmers and passerby who does not use this toilet.

Top 3 – Tai
This project is located on the main road of the town, which is the core area of the tourism area in the planning. The crowd mainly included tourists, children from nearby primary schools and villagers from ancient towns. As a planned tourism core area, how to break the gap between tourists and villagers and feel the culture is a problem that needs to be solved.

Designers hope to use the public toilets as a medium to enter the site. While satisfying the basic use functions, we also use the soft and undulating features of the site to connect the roof with the hillside, and create leisure communication space for villagers in the form of platform, landscape and seat. Meanwhile, tourists are attracted to interact with villagers while having a rest. In addition, the slope roof creates a viewing platform, forming a space for dialogue with nature, so that visitors can have a long view of the Yangtze River, as well as the undulating roof shape of the town.

Top 3 – Rain Poem
We live in an era where mobile network prevails, an era of fast rhythm, an era of virtual sensation. Our connection with our world as well as other people has become digitalized. We no longer marvel at the simplest beautiful things that are created in nature, nor could we recall how delicate a person’s feeling can be. Beauty as it is and has always been, a heart of appreciation has been missing. As an architect, I hope my buildings can effectively bring people to communicate, in a poetic setting.