Here at Architizer we love celebrating winners (A+ Awards, anybody?). That’s why a few weeks ago we launched our first-ever Gingerbread Competition, and boy was it a sweet moment. (See what we did there?) We tasked our readers to create a work of edible architecture, whether it be a re-interpretation of an iconic building or their own unique design.

Well, the deadline has come and gone, and after sifting through countless entries, the Architizer staff has picked a winner! With architects and design enthusiasts submitting everything from candy tree structures to sushi tea houses, believe us, it was not easy. And so, ladies and gentlemen, drumroll please: Winning our admiration (and a brand new iPad Mini!) is Team Jacussi for their cookie construction of Oscar Niemeyer’s famed National Congress of Brazil. The edible edifice was not only meticulously assembled, but also serves as an entirely functional candy dish. Plus, it pays tribute to the legendary architect, who passed away this month.

While there may be only one grand prize winner, we were so impressed with the quality of the entries that we couldn’t keep them from our readers. We rounded up five additional favorites, including pueblo homes and hedonistic museums, to present for a tasty Tuesday treat. Click through to see the extremely delicious architecture from our Gingerbread Competition!

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Vitrahaus, Herzog & de Meuron; Photo courtesy of the architects

If you haven’t heard, Architizer is hosting our first ever Gingerbread House Competition! Obviously, (most) architects are great at designing houses, but we asked ourselves whether or not that skill translates into  cookie construction. Tasking architects and design enthusiasts worldwide to create their own tasty creations, the Architizer staff will judge the entries and choose our favorite five finalists to feature on our homepage and social media platforms. On top of everything else, the grand prize winner will receive a brand new iPad Mini to celebrate the holiday season!

Click through to learn how to enter and win!

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The holiday season is in full swing, and if you hadn’t noticed, we’ve been touting our deliciously favorite gingerbread structures—in addition to hosting our first-ever Gingerbread House Competition (have you entered yet?!). Of course, the edible edifices that really impress us are the unexpected interpretations of famed buildings and iconic scenes (did you see that Candycrane?) However, anyone who has attempted to build one of these tasty creations knows that it is a far more involved process than those sugary gum drops make it seem. Fortunately, for all those candy architects out there, the team at MOVOTO has developed a gingerbread calculator to aid in all of our cookie construction needs. Read more.

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Over a month later, and New York City (heck, the whole Northeastern coast) is still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Remember the crane collapse at the construction site of the luxe One57 residence? Well the staff at the Le Parker Meridien Hotel sure do! The hotel, which is on the same block as the residential development, was closed for nearly a week after Sandy’s winds toppled the towering crane, including Le Parker Meridien. Now, in honor of the fourth-annual gingerbread benefit on display at the hotel until January 3, the staff of Le Parker Meridien have recreated the infamous disaster scene entirely out of delectable treats. Read more!

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‘Tis the season to make merry. And what’s merrier than gingerbread!? We launched our Gingerbread House Competition yesterday, and to celebrate, we’ve scoped the interwebs for some great gingerbread architecture to get your creative juices going. The following “houses” are all modeled on modernist classics, like the Villa Savoye and the Guggenheim Museum (FLDubbs approves, or that’s how we’re interpreting that “smile” above). Of course, your gingerbread house can be anything you want, either based on a famous building, modernist or not, or a new “building” all your own. We’re giving away a brand new iPad mini to the best gingerbread creation, so you’ll definitely want to go all out! Click through and happy baking!

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Architizer is hosting the 2012 Gingerbread House Competition because architects design the best houses, and gingerbread should be no exception. Help us show the world what you can do! The Architizer staff will be judging the entries and choosing five finalists to feature on our homepage and social media platforms (we have over 600,000 Facebook fans). The ultimate winner will receive an iPad Mini and be celebrated throughout the holiday season on Architizer.

Click through to learn how to enter!

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This Christmas, amid the riotous clamor of infant cousins tearing through dozens of presents, alternately shrieking with joy and feigning excitement or satisfaction, I found myself more than a little surprised to see what the hollow mounds of shiny wrapping paper yielded: a bounty of toys emblazoned with likenesses of virtual characters, aka “de-digitized” toys. Granted, baubles like Angry Birds squeaky balls and Space Invader pillows were preceded by the first Super Mario Bros. plush toys released some 25 years ago–not forgetting the Mickey Mouse dolls introduced long before that. It makes sense, of course, that these digital avatars have crossed the threshold into the physical at a time when children spend most of their free time glued to their Kindles, iPads, video games, and computers, effortlessly navigating the world from one device to the next.

All that was pretext for one last gingerbread construction. Curbed showed us to a neat little time-lapse made by Youtube user mraakko, who molded and widdled an entire recreation of Angry Birds using just some basic props and sugary confections. Marzipan birds are lined up in a queue ready to be launched at an unwieldy tower of gingerbread, straddled with unsuspecting piggies saturated with green food coloring. What else can we say, but happy new year!

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If you’ve never visited Fallingwater (and who are you?), now you can do so just by using your tablet or smartphone. Planet Architecture, a production company of documentaries and films about great architects and works of architecture, has released a Fallingwater app for the iPad and iPhone. Beyond high-res images and architectural drawings, the app offers 360° panoramic views of the house, interactive tours, animations, and 25 minutes of video from the documentary film “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater,” with interviews and tours by the director of Fallingwater Lynda Waggoner and several historians. The iPad app markets at a relatively costly $9.99 rate, while the iPhone app can be yours for $4.99.

In more Fallingwater news–isn’t there always more?–we came across an impressive gingerbread rendition of the 20th Century’s most iconic house, complete with fondant cantilevers beset with sugar icicles and bending slightly under the perennial weight of gravity. The layered sandstone has been translated into stacks of SweetTarts, the rust-colored window casements recreated with some sort of red-colored candy variety (I’d like to think unraveled Twizzlers), and the “falling water” rendered in a sludge of aqua icing. Here’s to the holidays!

Photo via

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Photo: mommypants.com

Thought that this holiday season’s geekiest gingerbread architecture (a term I use with full knowledge of the syntactic redundancy) were those Bucky-inspired, geodesic gingerbread domes? Guess again. That dubious distinction goes to the gingerbread AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport, for the uninitiated), a near perfect incarnation of the Empire’s mammal-like assault vehicle used in, you know, the Battle of Hoth. Made by Rachel Klemek of Irvine, California-based Blackmarket Bakery for the Discovery Science Center‘s 6th Annual Gingerbread Competition, the edible replica is rendered in mid-stride, with beveled gingerbread panels approximating the angular geometries of the original’s steel body. Charming sugar panels and candies are lovingly applied as detailing flourishes, while licorice mounted to the head (command center) mimic medium blasters.  A doughier-than-usual Luke Skywalker hangs suspended from the belly of the beast as it moves through the marshmallow-strewn terrain.

Image: Lucasfilm

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