This hand-sized publication chronicles the results of the 1st Advanced Architecture Contest sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC). With the goal of stimulating social, technical and cultural progress, the international competition's intention was to be a precursor to more extensive research to be performed at the IAAC on the theme of the Self-Sufficent House.

As you can imagine, attracting 529 participants from 6 continents, the entries demonstrate an impressive diversity of ideas and development. The editors managed to locate each entry ideologically within the eight categories of 'Bio and Bug', 'Blow and Form', 'Common and Related', 'Modulated and Cost', 'Position and Site', 'Territorial and Community', 'Theory' and 'Wrapped'. Admittedly, the categories are nebulous at times and this may be due partly to the fact that many entries simply straddle multiple ideas and defy categorization.

The format and layout is easy-to-use and predictable with each entry presented on two pages with several entries earning additional pages where warranted. What is impressive about the work as a whole is the level of sophistication of the majority of the entries. Some are very diagrammatically and ideologically well-developed while others delve into the reality of the assembly and fabrication of the proposed systems.

There are a wealth of ideas to be discovered here and IAAC should be commended on the quality of their dissemination of the information. Now, if only all competitions resulted in similar publications........

www.actar.com