For a private enclave in the Yuba River region, more than 40 Bay Area finalists in the inaugural juried SHLTR™ Blue Chip Design Award Competition — presented in partnership with Aaron Gordon Construction and Strata Landscape Architecture — devised a remarkable range of bespoke cabins. Now, two winning designs — one by Mork-Ulnes Architecture and the other by Claudia Mackenzie, an Academy of Art University architecture student — will be built in 2027.

The Jurors for the SHLTR™ Blue Chip Design Award — including architect Tom Kundig, landscape architect Andrea Cochran, and Portland architect Ben Waechter — little expected to unanimously award Mork-Ulnes Architecture the top $5,000 cash prize and select Claudia Mackenzie’s entry for the top student-level $500 honorarium at the very onset.

Consensus came quickly; the remaining selections took longer. Honor awards went to Faulkner Architects and BLUR, a landscape and architecture design collective, while Merit citations went to WDA, Feldman Architecture, and Valentina Leoni Architecture.

Mork-Ulnes’ Manzanita Lookout also distinguished itself conceptually. Conceived as a platform-framed, light-on-the-land building inspired by fire-spotting towers, it incorporates a secondary wood-or-steel exoskeleton for mounting galvanized shutters and accommodating upper-level sleeping and lounging platforms.

The vertical strategy was deliberate. Alongside principals Casper and Lexie Mork Ulnes, the team, including Colin Griffin and Kaoru Lovett, “took advantage of building taller,” Casper says. “And we struggled with each part that could impact the view.”

Meanwhile, Academy of Art University graduate student Claudia Mackenzie’s cabin design, Aerie, “a threshold between earth and air” on a cantilevered platform, distills off-grid living to its essentials. “I never thought of designing a cabin,” she says. “The idea of something simple, sustainable, and beautiful came to me quickly.”  

Shltr-Mag.com/Competitions