The following text is the exact description submitted to the competition:

Lady in a Top Hat’ is a landmark, a statement, a humble shed. A bridge the gap between the age of soulless digital and the eternal vernacular needed all along. The main narrative behind its inception, relies on the child-like experience of ‘climbing a tree’. Starting from relative darkness, ascending to an incremental revelation of the view. The gradient skin and structure stand metaphorically as branches and leaves, creating a continuously dissolving filter between the user and their surroundings. A decreasing density that generates a relationship between them and the skin. This memory – invoking gesture is being reinforced by the haptic quality of the material palette – wooden floor and slat finish, raw steel structure – that create a familiar, warm and nature-like environment for the visitor, reconnecting them with nature.

This story-line is translated into architecture with a formal exploration that – literally – revolves around a strongly defined core, not unlike a human spine or a trunk of a tree, and a soft yet elegant twist around it, crowned by a hip roof. The latter functions both as a contemporary conversion of an anonymous architectural element and a social commentary – as the project’s name suggests, proposing the unlikely metaphorical pairing of a piece of attire, interwoven with male dominance, – the top hat – combined with the slender proportions that can only be found on the female form• a lady, a lady in a top hat.