While there has been much dialogue about achieving a ’borderless’ condition through economic and legislative initiatives, currently, the actual border spaces themselves have been neglected and are lagging behind these developments.

Within this context, the Association of Siamese Architects (ASA) have launched a competition themed “Designing Future ASEAN Borders” to engage the design community in public discussion regarding the border areas along the 10 ASEAN nations – namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Borderless competition is backed by an impressive judging panel that includes Vo Trong Nghia, Takashi Niwa and Masaaki Iwamoto of Vo Trong Nghia Architects (Vietnam); Takaharu Tezuka of Tezuka Architects (Japan); Ary Indra, Rafael David and Johansen Yap of Aboday (Indonesia); Boonserm Premthada of Bangkok Project Studio (Thailand); and Luke Yeung and Jariyawadee Lekawatana from Architectkidd (Thailand).

Luke Yeung, the competition’s curator, says, “In order to judge the projects of our competition, we have gathered notable Asian architects who are defining a new generation of Asian architectural practice. Their presence will attract designers from all over the world and we hope to receive critical and challenging proposals from the next generation of architectural talent in Asia.”

Regarding the “Borderless” theme, Yeung says, “With all the talk about the AEC (ASEAN Economic Community) and creating a ’borderless’ condition in 2015, I’m surprised that there has been very little discussion about the physical conditions of the borders. Not enough is being done to improve these areas and spaces. In order to achieve ’borderless’, we must first understand the space of the borders themselves.”

The competition is seeking proposals that focus on local border sites, where specific cultural, social and ecological issues can be addressed while engaging in larger spatial and institutional scales. The goal is to demonstrate how architecture can re-define the future of ASEAN borders.

The Borderless competition is being held in conjunction with Architect Expo 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand (April 30 to May 5, 2013). The deadline for the competition is March 30 and registration is free. For more information and to submit your entries, go to borderlesscompetition.com