with Barry and Melody Finnemore
COMPETITIONS: How did you get started in competition management?
Don Stastny: It started as part of the development of the city of Portland’s Downtown Plan. The block that eventually became Pioneer Courthouse Square was proposed as a 10-story parking garage. That proposal coalesced the community – the design community and the lay community – into thinking about what they wanted downtown Portland to be. There was quite a conversation between politicians, business leaders and designers about what the square should be, and there was so much controversy involved that no one with the city wanted to deal with the politics of it.
Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland Oregon – Competition (1980)
Designer – Willard Martin
When we were selected to manage the process, we focused on three things: defining a program for the square, developing a budget and determining how to select a design with so many ideas floating around. We formed a technical advisory committee, a design advisory committee and a citizens advisory committee, and held 162 public and private meetings over three years.
The program was for an open square with coverage limited to a third of the site, and a public square in the European style. The budget came in at just over four million dollars. And we decided that we would hold a design competition with some “insurance policies” built in.
It was important to note that this wasn’t just about design, but also about commerce and politics in the city and what the square should be for the community. We had very few U.S. examples of public squares at that time, so much of the competition was about defining what a civic square in an American city should be.
COMPETITIONS: Which competition(s) gave you the most satisfaction?
DS: Those that have been the most rewarding are in a way the most conflicting: the Oklahoma City and Flight 93 memorials. With both we were dealing with a rush toward “memorialization.”
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Sponsor: AIAS, Kawneer
Type: Student, ideas
Language: English
Eligibility: All architecture and design students worldwide may enter. Additionally, young designers that have graduated within 18 months of the registration deadline may enter.
Fee: Free for AIAS member. $10 for non-members.
Timetable:
14 October 2012: Registration
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Sponsor: AIA Cincinnati
Type: Open, ideas
Language: English
Eligibility:
All individuals and team members must be 18 years of age and over. Team and Firm Submissions must designate a primary contact person for communication purposes only. There is no limit to the number of members on a
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Sponsor: City of York Council, RIBA
Type: Open, ideas, international, 2-stage
Language: English
Eligibility: Open internationally to registered architects and architect-led teams. Architects should be registered with the Architects Registration Board (ARB) in the UK, or a recognized overseas regulatory authority.
Timetable:
6 November 2012
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Sponsor: German Federal Government
Competition organizer: [phase eins], Berlin
Type: Open, international, 2-stage
Language: German
Timetable:
29 October 2012 – Submission deadline for 1st stage
Competition process:
The competitionʼs jury, a team of artists, architects as well as members of the ministry, will evaluate
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Sponsor: METROPOLIS magazine
Type: open, international
Language: English
Fee: $75.00
Eligibility: open to any designer or architect in practice for ten years or less, as well as design students. The $10,000 prize is intended to support designers whose entries reflect considerations of inclusive design, systems thinking, sustainability,
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Type: Open, one-stage
New Timetable:
Registration Deadline: November 12, 2012
Questions Deadline: December 10, 2012
Submission Deadline: January 7, 2013
Jury Review: January 2013
Website: http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=267756cee400a7407bd996bd7&id=7abe0d1714&e=2b0bf2ba79
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Sponsor: Hong Kong SAR Government
Type: Open, international, two-stage, Expressions of Interest (EOI)
Language: English
Fee: None
Eligibility: Licensed architects
Timetable:
15 October 2012 (noon, HK time) – Deadline for expressions of interest
December 2012 – Shortlisted teams announced
Compensation:
Shortlisted teams will be
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Looking for an Iconic Answer:
The Oceanside High School Performing Arts Center
by Larry Gordon
Winning entry by Harley Devereaux
Oceanside High School has a location that many other big public campuses may envy. The 2,500-student school is an easy walk to some of California’s most beautiful beaches and also is close to the big open spaces of the U.S. Marines’ Camp Pendleton base along the Pacific coast. What’s more, the campus is just to the west of the Interstate 5, the main freeway route that puts downtown San Diego only about 40 minutes away.
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Designing a Museum Addition:
by David Theodore
Winning entry by OMA/Provencher Roy et Associés, architectes All photos courtesy of Catalogue des Concours Canadiens, L.E.A.P., Université de Montréal
The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) made architectural history in 2010 by winning an open international competition for a new museum—in a place where international architects hadn’t won one for over fifty years. What’s more, they won in a city that’s been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1985. This aggressiveness in foreign markets is business-as-usual for the world’s top firms. But surprisingly, the competition wasn’t in China or Russia or India or Brazil, but rather Canada. OMA won the international competition for an addition to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) in Québec City.
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Helsinki Central Library, by ALA Architects (2012-2018)
The world has experienced a limited number of open competitions over the past three decades, but even with diminishing numbers, some stand out among projects in their categories that can’t be ignored for the high quality and degree of creativity they revealed. Included among those are several invited competitions that were extraordinary in their efforts to explore new avenues of institutional and museum design. Some might ask why the Vietnam Memorial is not mentioned here. Only included in our list are competitions that were covered by us, beginning in 1990 with COMPETITIONS magazine to the present day. As for what category a project under construction (Science Island), might belong to or fundraising still in progress (San Jose’s Urban Confluence or the Cold War Memorial competition, Wisconsin), we would classify the former as “built” and wait and see what happens with the latter—keeping our fingers crossed for a positive outcome.
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Young Architects in Competitions
When Competitions and a New Generation of Ideas Elevate Architectural Quality
by Jean-Pierre Chupin and G. Stanley Collyer
published by Potential Architecture Books, Montreal, Canada 2020
271 illustrations in color and black & white
Available in PDF and eBook formats
ISBN 9781988962047
What do the Vietnam Memorial, the St. Louis Arch, and the Sydney Opera House have in common? These world renowned landmarks were all designed by architects under the age of 40, and in each case they were selected through open competitions. At their best, design competitions can provide a singular opportunity for young and unknown architects to make their mark on the built environment and launch productive, fruitful careers. But what happens when design competitions are engineered to favor the established and experienced practitioners from the very outset?
This comprehensive new book written by Jean-Pierre Chupin (Canadian Competitions Catalogue) and Stanley Collyer (COMPETITIONS) highlights for the crucial role competitions have played in fostering the careers of young architects, and makes an argument against the trend of invited competitions and RFQs. The authors take an in-depth look at past competitions won by young architects and planners, and survey the state of competitions through the world on a region by region basis. The end result is a compelling argument for an inclusive approach to conducting international design competitions.
Download Young Architects in Competitions for free at the following link:
https://crc.umontreal.ca/en/publications-libre-acces/
RUR model perspective – ©RUR
New Kaohsiung Port and Cruise Terminal, Taiwan (2011-2020)
Reiser+Umemoto RUR Architecture PC/ Jesse Reiser – U.S.A.
with
Fei & Cheng Associates/Philip T.C. Fei –R.O.C. (Tendener)
This was probably the last international open competition result that was built in Taiwan. A later competition for the Keelung Harbor Service Building Competition, won by Neil Denari of the U.S., the result of a shortlisting procedure, was not built. The fact that the project by RUR was eventually completed—the result of the RUR/Fei & Cheng’s winning entry there—certainly goes back to the collaborative role of those to firms in winning the 2008 Taipei Pop Music Center competition, a collaboration that should not be underestimated in setting the stage for this competition.
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Winning entry ©Herzog de Meuron
In visiting any museum, one might wonder what important works of art are out of view in storage, possibly not considered high profile enough to see the light of day? In Korea, an answer to this question is in the making.
It can come as no surprise that museums are running out of storage space. This is not just the case with long established “western” museums, but elsewhere throughout the world as well. In Seoul, South Korea, such an issue has been addressed by planning for a new kind of storage facility, the Seouipul Open Storage Museum. The new institution will house artworks and artifacts of three major museums in Seoul: the Seoul Museum of Modern Art, the Seoul Museum of History, and the Seoul Museum of Craft Art.
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Belfast Looks Toward an Equitable and Sustainable Housing Model
Birdseye view of Mackie site ©Matthew Lloyd Architects
If one were to look for a theme that is common to most affordable housing models, public access has been based primarily on income, or to be more precise, the very lack of it. Here it is no different, with Belfast’s homeless problem posing a major concern. But the competition also hopes to address another of Belfast’s decades-long issues—its religious divide. There is an underlying assumption here that religion will play no part in a selection process. The competition’s local sponsor was “Take Back the City,” its membership consisting mainly of social advocates. In setting priorities for the housing model, the group interviewed potential future dwellers as well as stakeholders to determine the nature of this model. Among those actions taken was the “photo- mapping of available land in Belfast, which could be used to tackle the housing crisis. Since 2020, (the group) hosted seminars that brought together international experts and homeless people with the goal of finding solutions. Surveys and workshops involving local people, housing associations and council duty-bearers have explored the potential of the Mackie’s site.” This research was the basis for the competition launched in 2022.
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Alster Swimming Pool after restoration (2023)
Linking Two Competitions with Three Modernist Projects
Hardly a week goes by without the news of another architectural icon being threatened with demolition. A modernist swimming pool in Hamburg, Germany belonged in this category, even though the concrete shell roof had been placed under landmark status. When the possibility of being replaced by a high-rise building, it came to the notice of architects at von Gerkan Marg Partners (gmp), who in collaboration with schlaich bergermann partner (sbp), developed a feasibility study that became the basis for the decision to retain and refurbish the building.
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