Overview
Javier Solans is an architect and the founder of WinnersDaily, the online community and newsletter of architecture competitions, based in Barcelona. His Honourable Mention entry took the Spitalfields brief as a genuine design challenge — not a visualisation exercise — and asked whether it was actually possible to create architecture, not just communicate it, inside a 48-hour sprint.
The concept
The project explores inserting a new, smaller-scale infrastructure inside an existing larger one. The generative unit is a cube. Once you have a cube, you can subdivide; once you can subdivide, you unlock different use cases per module — internal programmes, flexible combinations, shifting spatial hierarchies depending on need. The ambition was never to produce a polished render. It was to see how far a design idea could travel — from concept to spatial logic to atmosphere — in an extremely compressed timeframe.
Workflow & process
Three clear phases, each building on the last. First, find an existing photograph of the interior to serve as the atmospheric ground truth — the light, the scale, the mood, everything the final images should feel like. Second, explore the geometry of the intervention — modelling, initial rendering, establishing the logic of the cube and its subdivisions through traditional tools. Third, mix both together — using Gendo to fill the found space with the developed geometry, letting the real and the designed coexist, collide and eventually convince each other. The key realisation was that Gendo does not delete the old tools — it increases their potential. The modelling still happened. The compositional thinking still happened. But the number of iterations multiplied, the quality of each pass improved, and the time to reach a result that felt true to the idea collapsed dramatically.
Interview
Q: Was this your first time using Gendo, and how has your relationship with it evolved?
First time, and it was genuinely great. My honest take: for solopreneurs or small teams of two or three, a tool like this operates as a superpower. You're not replacing judgment or craft — you're removing the friction between having an idea and being able to evaluate it visually. That's an enormous shift in how fast you can think.
Q: What did the result mean to you — and what would you do differently next time?
It's always great to win — not just to be included, to win. There's a real difference and it matters to be honest about that. Beyond the recognition, what the Honourable Mention confirmed is something the WinnersDaily community talks about constantly: the edge isn't in having access to the tools. Everyone will have access. The edge is in knowing what to do with them, and having something worth saying before you open them. Next time I'd be even more deliberate about the conceptual frame before touching anything. The strongest entries had a clarity of intention that made every image feel inevitable. That's the standard I'm chasing.
Q: In your own words, what was it like to compete in Gendo 48?
A great experience — and an interesting one to think about beyond the competition itself. WinnersDaily has always been about showcasing what others are creating at the frontier. Gendo 48 made me realise that tools like this open a different possibility: communities and brands that have historically curated can now start to create. The same shift will happen to a lot of people. The question is who moves first and with the most intention.
Key takeaways
Javier's entry is methodologically interesting because it refuses to choose. Existing photograph, traditional modelling, AI iteration — each phase does what it does best, in the right order. The cube is almost beside the point; the real proposal is the workflow itself, and the case it makes for combining the old and the new with discipline. Coming from someone who watches the global competition circuit weekly, it's a credible signal of where studio practice is moving.