“Superstructure Ecology” Earns International Design Award Recognition

This month, the International Design Awards (IDA) awarded Superstructure Ecology, a speculative research and design project by plodes® studio, an honorable mention recognition at its 19th annual awards ceremony in Bangkok, Thailand. plodes® studio is a multidisciplinary design firm operated by Roya Plauché, interim director of Environmental Design at the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design, and her partner, John Paul Plauché. The IDA is an international competition recognizing excellence in architecture, design, and interdisciplinary work, with submissions from more than 70 countries reviewed by a global jury of design professionals.

IDA acknowledged the project for its ambitious rethinking of architecture as ecological infrastructure. Rather than proposing a single building, Superstructure Ecology presents a repeatable, adaptable framework positioning architecture as an active participant in environmental systems, capable of supporting biodiversity, water management, energy production, and human occupation simultaneously.

“I have been exploring the idea of nurturing ecology through infrastructure in my research for several years,” Plauché said. “Superstructure Ecology is grounded in the belief that architecture can serve as ecological infrastructure rather than a static object.”

The project’s foundation is an investigation of landscapes existing in a dual condition of ecological abundance and depletion, particularly along the Gulf Coast, where water systems and environmental potential have often been overworked by industrial and agricultural use. Superstructure Ecology asks how familiar industrial typologies, specifically the metal shed common to agricultural landscapes, can be reimagined as performative systems supporting ecological restoration and long-term resilience while continuing to accommodate human activity.

The project intentionally operates across multiple scales. At the human scale, it establishes a home–work relationship through a series of domestic and productive spaces organized beneath a single superstructure. The structure serves as both a frame and a filter, supporting inhabitable volumes while collecting rainwater, generating shade, and shaping the landscape below. At the building scale, elements of the structure function as transitional thresholds between cultivated fields and living space, emphasizing passage through layered climatic and spatial conditions.

At the regional scale, the project reinterprets the ubiquitous metal shed as a unifying infrastructural canopy organizing diverse programs beneath a porous framework. At the ecological scale, the structure is designed to mitigate environmental impact and regenerate regional plant habitats, positioning architecture as an instrument of environmental stewardship rather than extraction.

Plauché describes this project as prioritizing research and exploration over fixed outcomes. Rather than resolving into a single architectural object, Superstructure Ecology proposes a system adapting to diverse ecological contexts, programs, and geographic conditions. Design decisions remain connected across regional systems, material logic, and human experience, reinforcing a continuous dialogue among scale, performance, and use.

This systems-based approach closely aligns with Plauché’s goals for the Hines College’s Environmental Design program. The project drives systems thinking, interdisciplinary inquiry, and adaptability, demonstrating how design can move fluidly across scales while maintaining conceptual clarity. By operating simultaneously across architectural, landscape, infrastructural, and ecological domains, Superstructure Ecology reflects the program’s emphasis on preparing resilient designers to navigate complex environmental challenges and evolving professional pathways.

“Our IDA award situates Superstructure Ecology within a growing global discourse that views ecological performance as central to architectural design rather than supplementary,” Plauché shared.

Superstructure Ecology is an ongoing line of inquiry rather than a finished solution. It functions not only as speculative but also as actionable. The project is intended to evolve into a research platform, with opportunities to expand into new ecological contexts, test additional infrastructural typologies, and inform both teaching and future design work. Within the Environmental Design curriculum, the project will shape urban-scale studios focused on ecology and infrastructure, reinforcing the value of speculative, research-driven design as a rigorous mode of inquiry.