Welcome to CONVERTED, The 9th International Architectural Design & Visualization Challenge I’m running in partnership with Substance by ADOBE as the Material Category Marquee Sponsor and ASUS as our Hardware sponsor.

Converted entry by Joey Zhao

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BingDing wood kiln factory is a porcelain factory located in Jingdezhen, the Porcelain Capital of China. Renovated by AZL architects in 2018, the factory building consists of a concrete and brick building, where the kiln is located, and a side building on the right where a staircase leads to the second floor of the main building. In my renovation plan, I’m going to extend the space by adding a symmetric space on the other side of the building. By using a totally different material, I hope to create visual contrast and most importantly to expand the functionality of the space.

Converted entry by Shiju NK

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The Work Process of this project involves a lot of brain storming sessions since everything has to be designed from scratch ! The most challenging as well as the interesting part is to imagine from the story’s character’s point of view, of how the old workshop might have withstood all these years, the small things that the family would have loved to keep as memories that were once a part of the workshop, the surrounding landscape and green cover. So, I started off by preparing rough concept sketches of how I imagined the structure might have looked.
Then I began collecting reference images of all the different elements that I will be adding.
First of, I started modelling the tree that’s part of the old workshop, with a reference from a real one. Enjoy the Work Process of it below.
I started modeling the basic shape of the tree in 3dsMax using the reference images. Then I unwrapped it and did the detailing in Mudbox.

Converted entry by Erfan3p

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I think the best thing to do before doing an architectural project is to plan! And it’s been a few days that I’m working on this very simple plan, I didn’t take too much time to represent it better or render it better than this but just to show you guys what I’m about to do, btw plans are very necessary for me because I get so confused when I don’t know what to do.
As you can see I’m going to convert my building to a local Agricultural centre. I took advantage of 1200 square meter roofed space with no columns and created a space that can be used for vertical farming in case of studies that require a very controlled environment for researches on plants and specific vegetables.
I’m starting to model my building and my site plan, you can see more information and details in the images.
Thanks for reading, have a nice day!

Converted entry by Erfan3p

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I think the best thing to do before doing an architectural project is to plan! And it’s been a few days that I’m working on this very simple plan, I didn’t take too much time to represent it better or render it better than this but just to show you guys what I’m about to do, btw plans are very necessary for me because I get so confused when I don’t know what to do.
As you can see I’m going to convert my building to a local Agricultural centre. I took advantage of 1200 square meter roofed space with no columns and created a space that can be used for vertical farming in case of studies that require a very controlled environment for researches on plants and specific vegetables.
I’m starting to model my building and my site plan, you can see more information and details in the images.
Thanks for reading, have a nice day!

Converted entry by Iryna Nalyvaiko

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My entry for this challenge is “abandoned Catholic churches of Ukraine”. With this work I would like to draw attention to the massive deterioration of abandoned architectural monuments.

The reason for the decline of these Catholic churches is the affiliation of modern citizens to a different religion – Orthodox. Most of these churches were built by the Polish many years ago, who at that time governed the current lands of Western & Central Ukraine. These buildings have fallen into disrepair for many reasons and the main one is rather simple – the locals belong to another denomination of Christianity. Currently these buildings are being destroyed, mostly, by weather conditions, as well as lack of care and restoration.

The saddest thing in this story is that nobody will restore these churches in the future. Many of them are found on the outskirts of small and almost deserted villages. Restoration of such buildings does not make any economic sense, they will not become cultural or tourist centers. What is more, currently more and more people are leaving those villages and are moving to big cities or abroad, looking for a better life, therefore, these small deserted villages are becoming even more deserted or abandoned completely.

To participate in this challenge, I chose more than one specific building. My project will emphasize the common features of these churches.
My renovation will have nothing to do with religion – my dream is to give these structures a second life in the sense in which they will be of interest to potential visitors – by turning them into Museums, Art Galleries or Exhibitions.
Also, since it’s digital art, I don’t really want to stick to reality;)

Pictures and names of these buildings, as well as screenshots of work-in-progress renderings are attached to this post.

Converted entry by Erfan3p

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Urmia radio and television centre was built in 1965 by one of the greatest architects of its time” Jahangir Darvish”.
This building was one of the first radio and television centres of Iran by that time. The goal was to expand and progress media and television in the northwest of the country. Its site is bigger than 3000 square meters and has been built on a hill, It gives a great view of the road for the passengers and because of its bright materials (brick and concrete), it literally glows in a clear sky. When looking from afar, it more looks like a crown and it is obvious that this building is way different from other buildings in the city. I can tell the only building which follows form and a specific type of style in the local area is this place which I will try to convert to something new.
I wish we had more buildings like this in our city (alive), because when you look at them you kind of feel that something about the place you’re living is special and it is more of an icon than a building. It seems the place used to be a big hall with no columns in the middle because of its very incredible structure which covers 1200 square meters of roofed space. I couldn’t find the buildings plan unfortunately but as it seemed when I visited the place there were no space separators in between nor walls and I’m pretty sure they used this place as a television studio (some parts of it) because it is designed to get less natural light inside of it. despite that, it has so many windows and entrances, again, inside it is quite dark there and it has only three light sheds on the roof (square-shaped). Coming to the current state of the building, it has been abandoned for over 30 years and over time the buildings interior space got destroyed by weather or unworthy people who stole infrastructure of the building and damaged its walls, but the building is fully standing, and to me, it is more resistance than any building in the city because they used high-quality materials and a stiff structure.
Coming to this challenge, I’m planning to repair and change its functionality, it’s such a shame that we haven’t made this building alive. I will try to convert this building into something new, fresh and green! My main purpose in this project will be a small contribution to limiting global warming.
I’m sure this is gonna be a great challenge for me and for everyone who is participating.
And one thing more about the name of the project, I think buildings have characters and they are like trees in the woods, they don’t speak but they say a lot about things we don’t already know, because of that I decided to name this project “Forsaken” since it is very unfair to leave them to be demolished one day. But who knows, maybe we will understand the deep meaning of reusing and restoring what we have instead of replacing and making something new. As they said: We can only see what is not there, and miss what is in front of us.
I also wanna thank all sponsors and Mr Ronen Bekerman
Good luck to everyone.