The seventh edition of the popular 'Fairy Tales' competition just revealed its winning entries.

The dominating themes of this year's most gripping illustrated short stories seemed like ominous reflections of the spirit of this age: environmental collapse, existential crisis, violent realities, and prevailing uncertainty. Submitted from over 65 countries, the competition entries explored current and fictional events through creative storytelling and fascinating illustrations.

The jury, which consisted of seasoned architects, historians, authors, previous Fairy Tales winners, members of the media (including Archinect), and the organizers Blank Space, selected three prize winners and eleven honorable mentions.

1ST PLACE: "The Year Without a Winter" by Tamás Fischer and Carlotta Cominetti

From the winners: "We wrote our story thinking about the moment when the world has to stop and people have to change their habits to avoid the collapse and to protect themselves from an unfamiliar event, like a very strong and sudden climate change. We now realise how our story can look like the situation the world is experiencing today: waiting, boredom, loneliness, regrets, social media as the only way out. But what we really wanted to highlight is how emergency situations can lead to a real turning point. Difficult situations lead people to think more and use their creativity differently. Since this pandemic started, we have been talking about a life-changing event, which is exactly the subject of our story. Our lives will change, but for the better." — Tamás Fischer and Carlotta Cominetti

About the authors: "Tamàs Fischer, from Hungary, and Carlotta Cominetti, from Italy, are co-founders of VIRGINLEMON, a production company for architectural imagery and animation. Both Tamás and Carlotta love architecture and are passionate about spaces, forms and materials. In search of the right way to express this passion of theirs, they worked at various architectural studios. Soon after they met each other in 2013, they decided to try something on their own. The point was to create a space where they could link up with other architects and exchange different ideas and points of views, as they wanted their daily jobs to find new and interesting ways of communication through images, 3D illustration and Animation."

2nd PLACE: "SYMBIOSIS" by Aleksandr Čebotariov and Laura Kuršvietytė

From the winners: "Our fairy tale is a naive attempt to address the issue of different kinds of crises we are experiencing - not only ecological, but social and existential as well. In the routine of everyday life, based on capitalism, we tend to lose ourselves to our jobs, our forests to fields and commerce. We forget our capabilities, such as senses, of our natural organisms, and many other things. We were mostly inspired by The Swamp School, a Lithuanian pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, where we volunteered, its creators Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonai, and after that living in an urban environment of Brussels stimulated our thoughts, collected in Venice." — Aleksandr Čebotariov and Laura Kuršvietytė

About the authors: "Laura is currently working as a 3D artist in a Brussels-based studio and has recently started enjoying this field more and more as a way to express some architectural or not so architectural, more dreamy thoughts, though she studied architecture. Originally she is from Lithuania, from where she pulls her deepest inspirations and where her constant search for nature is rooted. Aleksandr is from a small village in Lithuania, growing up close to nature. After finishing his architecture studies, he moved to Brussels, where he works now."

3RD PLACE: "Lloronas of Juárez" by Albert Orozco and Edward Rivero

From the winners: ""Lloronas of Juarez" is a narrative of the ongoing violence against migrants, specifically women and children, that is enacted through national borders by settler-colonial states. Through an intersectional analysis, we leverage protest art, historical narrative, and landscape urbanism to re-imagine what the ecologies around the Mexico/U.S. border can become if we move toward more relational ways of connecting to the land. Specifically, our project critiques racist immigration policies, gendered ideologies, and xenophobic logics that converge in the design and construction of borders and prisons. We call attention to the urgency of abolishing detention centers that imprison migrant communities throughout the United States through a story of struggle and resistance portrayed by the protagonists of the story. We hope to dream in solidarity with migrants, immigrant rights activists, critical scholars, artists, designers, as well as other community organizers, who continue to resist empire-building toward the development of a future without borders." — Albert Orozco and Edward Rivero

About the authors: "Albert Orozco is an architectural designer based in Los Angeles, California who dedicates himself to exploring projects that reflect issues of the environment, racism, immigration, and identity. His current work interweaves Mexican-American histories, mythologies, and geographies with architectural design to orchestrate scenographic stories that critique colonial architecture. Specifically, he hopes to create more collaborative spaces between artists, scholars, activists, and designers to imagine more ecologically sustainable spaces for historically dispossessed communities. Edward Rivero is a learning scientist interested in the intersections of learning, power, and designing with technologies. His current work examines the narratives and ideologies that emerge in the design processes of children from non-dominant communities in tinkering programs. Through participatory design-based research, Edward also works with the educator and teen-facilitators in the after-school tinkering program to design discussions that historicize technologies, digital, and making activities."

The 11 entries receiving honorable mentions (see image gallery below) are:

• Diego Grisaleña Albéniz and James Mitchell for ““H.A.N.D, I DO””
• Amit Avni for “Back to Eden”
• Anton Markus Pasing of Remote Controlled Studio for “USO-03 unit A_Upstream Strategic Outposts”
• Eric & Eva de Broche des Combes for “7121 Lonzo”
• Jiawei Liang and Wei Wu for “Ghostly Presence”
• Marie Walker-Smith for “Rothiemurchus 2098”
• Ioanna Sotiriou & Maria Tsilogianni for “Mickey’s Mechanical House”
• Therese Leick and Wilhelm Scheruebl for “breath”
• Stefano Stecchelli, Carlo Occhipinti, Ilaria Caraffi, Francesco Bacci, and Carlo Canepa of To Nowhere Studio for “Post-reality framework”
• Lindsay Harkema for “Active Ornament”
• Suada Dema for “Purgatory”

The jury included Alison Brooks (Alison Brooks Architects), Marc Tsurumaki (LTL Architects), Jenny Wu and Dwayne Oyler (Oyler Wu Collaborative), Beatriz Colomina (Architectural Historian), Mecky Reuss and Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo (Pedro y Juana), Gail Carson Levine (Author), Arthur Mamou-Mani (Mamou-Mani LTD), Manuelle Gautrand (Manuelle Gautrand Architecture), Lorena Cano Acosta and Nicolas Mendoza Ramos (Fairy Tales 2019 Winners), Alexander Walter (Archinect & Bustler), David Basulto (ArchDaily), Sarah Curry and Adam Fogel (AIAS), Matthew Hoffman, Francesca Giuliani and Anna Creatura (Blank Space).