Architects, designers, and students who took part in PennDesign's LA+ Journal LA+ IMAGINATION ideas competition put their creativity to the test in envisioning a new imaginary island. The only rule? The island couldn't be larger than 1 square kilometer.

Out of 180 entries from 33 countries, the jury (members listed below) picked five winners and 10 honorable mentions. “The winning entries tell us something about what’s lurking in the unfettered imagination of contemporary design culture: we have monstrous ecological machines, places of melancholy, emergent digital natures, and of course, those old curmudgeons, utopia and dystopia. It’s an amazing archipelago of ideas,” Jury Chair Richard Weller stated.

Check out the winning entries below.

“Coastal Paradox” by Bradley Cantrell (University of Virginia), Fionn Byrne (University of British Columbia) + Emma Mendel (Nelson Byrd Woltz)

