Anarchitecture-led Team Awarded Honourable Mention in Liberland's Second International Architectural Competition

We are thrilled to announce that our team’s entry has been awarded an Honourable Mention in Liberland’s Second International Architectural Competition!

Our entry can be downloaded in PDF format here.

Tim presented our entry in his “Designing Liberland” talk at Porcfest in June 2021, shortly after the competition results were first announced. We will present Tim’s talk as our forthcoming podcast episode 34.

Free Republic of Liberland seeks recognition as a sovereign libertarian micronation on a 7km² peninsula on the Danube River (between Croatia and Serbia) that is not claimed by any other nation. It was established in 2015 by its current president, Vit Jedlicka.

In July 2020, we interviewed Daniela Ghertovici of ArchAgenda (episode 31), the competition curator. Daniela explained that the goals of the competition were to:

Envision how maximum design freedom can result in a complex legible order
Protect the sensitive ecology of the surrounding Danube-Drava wetlands
Apply the principles of liberty, free markets, and blockchain technology for a multi-stage evolution towards a fully functional, architecturally sophisticated, and intelligently adaptive city.

The competition jury panel was led by Vit Jedlicka and Patrik Schumacher, Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects. We explored Patrik’s ideas in a 4-part series (episodes 9-12), including our interview with Patrik in Episode 11.

Note: Due to these prior relationships with competition personnel, we did not publicly announce our participation in the competition.

Our Team

After the competition was announced, we assembled a team of liberty-minded architects and engineers, including:

Tim Brochu, Principal of Adra Architecture and co-host of Anarchitecture Podcast
Joe Brochu, Mechanical Engineer and co-host of Anarchitecture Podcast
Goshe King and Joe Green, Mechanical Engineers from Angineering Tech Podcast
Car Campit, Civil Engineer from Timeline Earth Podcast
John Ellis III, Architect who interviewed Tim on our episode 28
Palmer Ferguson, Architect
Ryan Myers, Architect
Andy Boenau, Transportation Planner, author, and host of the podcasts “Urbanism Speakeasy” and “How We Get Around” (https://www.andyboenau.com/)
Mat Slaughter, Engineer

Our Entry

Each team was asked to submit five posters and a 500 word written statement.

We initially brainstormed some exotic architectural ideas to suspend the city above the flood level on “spires” and metabolist megastructures rising over a series of canals.

However, for the final entry we focused on presenting real-world approaches to overcoming the many challenges presented by the Liberland site, as well as capitalizing on it’s many strengths.

While our entry may not be the most visually impressive, we hope that future designers of Liberland will benefit from our detailed research and analysis.

Plan view of Liberland — Liberland plan view. All land farther south is part of the “Tom Woods Woods” nature preserve.

Posters

Each of our posters (PDF download) covered a particular aspect of the design:

Development – Overview of the proposed solution and project staging
Site and Ecology – topology and hydrology of the Liberland site, with a plan view showing flood levels and options for water and sewage service provision.
Transportation – Analysis of options for internal, regional, and international transportation
Energy – Analysis of options for power, heating, and cooling
Napredak – Our vision for the Napredak area located in Apatin, Serbia, which is the gateway to Liberland via riverboat. This includes “The Libertarium,” a multi-functional building featuring a museum of liberty and convention center.

Written Statement

The following is our submitted written statement:

Liberland is a beacon of liberty to the world. It is a flourishing, prosperous, attractive, and fun city existing in harmony with its sensitive surrounding ecology.

Site Development

The annual flooding and sensitive wetlands make much of the available land unviable for development. Developing the entire area would be devastating to the local ecology and could alter the path of the Danube river during floods.

The city will be built on two developed areas taking advantage of existing high points. Low points will be retained as the spacious “Decentral Park” and the “Tom Woods Woods” nature preserve covering the southern half of the peninsula. These areas are allowed to flood without damaging property or built infrastructure.

The developed areas will have a high residential density comparable to Paris, giving Liberland an urban sensibility in a compact, walkable neighborhood footprint.

Building heights will range up to 20 stories, with an average height of 10 stories.

Infrastructure

Liberland’s compactness makes walking, cycling, and microtransit the predominant modes of internal transportation. Most streets will be closed to general car traffic but will be wide enough to support utility and emergency vehicles.

A road from Croatia is the primary route for goods delivery, however a wharf also enables river freight and passenger transport. A canalized marina protects personal watercraft from the river current.

Connections to Croatian and Serbian power grids will provide reliable, redundant power supply with minimal footprint. This supply will be supplemented by a gas or nuclear power station which captures and distributes waste heat to buildings.

Large scale infrastructure can be financed and owned by Distributed Autonomous Organization mechanisms that incentivize long term lending while preserving attractive user fees during the buildout phase. Initial low interest rates paid by a small number of users will increase to high interest rates in later years, divided among more users. These systems will collect ongoing funds for maintenance and upgrades, ensuring that Liberland’s infrastructure is never in disrepair.

Industry

Liberland will naturally attract primary industries that thrive on unimpeded trade and innovation. This is likely to include financial services, software and blockchain development, medical research and services, and rapid prototyping.

Land Use Planning

Rather than rigid master-planning, development goals can be achieved by establishing a system of costs and credits for developments that support the long-term goals of the Liberland community. Development goals may include density / building height, open space and right of way spacing and dimensions, daylight and view shed setbacks, etc.

This can be executed in a blockchain based Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), using smart contracts to collect fees from developers in escrow and award credits to them for achieving development goals.

Napredak

The Napredak development is a destination in itself, with it’s key attraction: “The Libertarium” – a multifunctional landmark building with a Museum of Liberty, a full-dome theater, and conference and event facilities.

“The Agora” is a open air marketplace along the riverbank that is a lively demonstration of decentralized free market principles in action.

Plan view of Napredak showing the LIbertarium — Plan view of Napredak, featuring The Libertarium. Not shown: “The Agora” pop-up marketplace.

Winning Entries

The competition received more than 20 entries from teams around the world, including professional architecture firms, independent architects, and student groups. Of these, five were awarded ranked prizes, and four received Honourable Mentions.

The winning entries can be viewed at the links below (on Liberland Press):

Correction – the original version of this post stated that Titus Gebel was a competition juror. This was incorrect and has been deleted above.

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Anarchitecture-led Team Awarded Honourable Mention in Liberland’s Second International Architectural Competition

Our Team