A Significant Addition to a Public Place: The Cadogan Café Competition, London

A Significant Addition to a Public Place

The Cadogan Café Competition, London

by Stanley Collyer

nex 3 view of duke of york square from the east

Winning entry by NEX (Illustration: NEX)

This place is missing something—probably a subliminal thought of many Londoners who frequented the Duke of York Square area in London, near the entrance to the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea. The locals also decided the site needed a visual lift—but what kind? Settling on a café as the answer would always seems to meet at least one requirement: You can pick up a coffee on the way to work, or it can serve as a casual meeting place. In any case, it is not to be ignored.

Urban Design in a Remote Village: The Klaksvik Town Center Competition

Urban Design in a Remote Village:

The Klaksvik Town Center Competition

by Stanley Collyer

Winning entry by Henning Larsen Architects (Illustration: Henning Larsen Architects)

The Klaksvik Town Center competition revealed that even a fishing village in a remote north Atlantic island group can attract the notice of the global architectural community. Located on one of the Faroe group islands in the north Atlantic between Iceland and Norway, Klaksvik was a relatively isolated fishing village until the recent construction of a road linked it to the rest of the island. Before that, all commercial communication with the rest of the archipelago had to take place by boat.

Klaksvik has been dependent on fishing for centuries; but as recent economic uncertainties in the fishing industry have battered the local economy, the municipality is looking elsewhere for economic stability—such as technology. However, in order to stem the brain drain to the European mainland of their younger citizens, the city decided that an upgrade of the town center could be part of the answer. In this way, they could at least visually keep in step with their European neighbors. To increase its public visibility and lend the town a more urban character, the city fathers decided to stage an international competition on the Scandinavian model—the islands are linked politically to Denmark—for modernization of the town’s center.

Interview: Frederic Schwartz (Spring 2006)

“World Cultural Center” – World Trade Center Innovative Masterplan – Runnerup, Ground Zero, NY, 2003

By THINK Team: Shigeru Ban, Frederic Schwartz, Ken Smith, Rafael Vinoly

COMPETITIONS: When did you know that you wanted to become an architect?

Frederic Schwartz: I grew up just a couple of towns over from Levittown. When anybody got a washing machine or refrigerator, I would scour the neighborhood for the boxes and bring them home with the help of my dad. I would make things out of them, like tunnels or big buildings. Where I grew up, they were always building houses in the neighborhood, and I was always watching this construction.
When I went to Berkeley, I had my first course with Joe Escherick as my professor, who was such a great teacher. He was the only architect I knew who won both the gold Medal for Firm of the Year and the teaching award. We remained very close through the rest of my career. In fact his wife gave me his shirt when he passed away. So when I was a freshman in college, I was already sure I wanted to become an architect. It wasn’t just Escherick, there were all these other great teachers, i.e., Roger Montgomery, J. B. Jackson, Richard Bender, Russ Ellis, and Marc Treib at Berkeley, and Jerzy Soltan at Harvard.
This was already called the College of Environmental Design in the 60s; so you automatically approached architecture and urbanism recognizing those parameters. I agreed with their philosophy: the school was very much about the relationship of landscape to building.

COMPETITIONS: You have participated in many competitions, some entirely on your own—here I am thinking about the memorial competitions you have won more recently—and others where you were a team member. Santa Fe is an example of the latter. But early on you collaborated with Robert Venturi on two competitions here in New York City. From those, the Whitehall Ferry Terminal has been built. How do you decide with whom you may wish to collaborate?

Central Mosque of Prishtina

Client: Islamic Community of Kosovo

Type: open, one-stage, international

Location: Prishtina, Kosovo

Language: English

Fee: 100 EUROS

Eligibility: Architects licensed in their country of origin

Timetable:

28 December 2012 – Registration deadline

4 January 2013 – Q&A period ends

8 March 2013 – Submission deadline

Awards:

1st prize – EUR 25,000

2nd prize – EUR

2nd Street Design Challenge

Sponsor: 2nd Street Community Partners

Type: Open, student, one-stage

Eligibility: Graduate and undergraduate students majoring in architecture, engineering, interior design, or other design-related disciplines

Entry fee: none

Awards:

1st Place: $500 Cash Prize and Certificate

2nd Place: $250 Cash Prize and Certificate

3rd Place: $100 Cash Prize and Certificate

Timetable:

11 January 2013

Call for Design Proposals: CURTAINS

Sponsor: Center for American Architecture and Design, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin

Type: Call for Proposals: open, international Location: Austin, Texas Eligibility: open to professionals and students Fees: Early Registration-US$35 Regular Registration-US$50 Timetable: 14 February 2013 – Registration deadline 14 March 2013 – Submission deadline Jury:

M+ Museum Competition (Hong Kong)

A shortlist of six design teams have been invited to submit proposals for the architectural design of M+, Hong Kong’s future museum for 20th and 21st century visual culture within the District, scheduled for completion in 2017. M+ is an ambitious project, the scale of the museum building alone, at around 62,000 square metres, will

VISIONARY (re)generation: University of Manitoba Fort Garry Campus Plan

Client: University of Manitoba

Type: open, two-stage, international

Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba

Language: English

Fee: none

Timetable:

11 March 2013 – Phase I entry submissions 29 July 2013 – Phase II entry submissions

Awards:

The promoter will provide the net amount of approx. 270,000 Canadian Dollars (CAD) for fees and prizes for services rendered. The total

German Federal Labor Ministry Building, Berlin

Sponsor: German Federal Government

Location: Berlin, Germany

Type: Open, one-stage, anonymous

Language: German

Fee: none

Eligibility: Architects licensed in their countries of origin: GPA/GATT Timetable: 13 December 2012 – Documents available 28 February 2013 – Submission deadline

Awards: 45,000 EUR total

To enter, go to:http://www.bbr.bund.de/cln_032/nn_22808/DE/WettbewerbeAusschreibungen/PlanungsWettbewerbe/Ablage__LaufWettbewerbe/Ablage__2012/bmas.html

Gold Coast Cultural Precinct Competition

Sponsor: City of Gold Coast, Australia

Type: open, international, two-stage, RfQ

Fee: none

Process:

Phase 1: Concept design competition (March-September 2013). This starts with an open invitation to participate and leads to the shortlisting of up to three teams, each of which will be asked to submit a detailed concept design. A winner will be

Ross Pavilion International Competition Shortlist

The seven-strong shortlist that reached the second stage of the Ross Pavilion International Design Competition was selected from the 125 teams (made up of 400 individual firms) who entered the competition. The Pavilion, which will provide a flexible platform for the imaginative arts and cultural programming that Edinburgh excels in, will allow visitors and residents to engage with a variety of events all year round. Other aspects of the circa £25m project include subtle updates to the West Princes Street Gardens – the latter being of outstanding cultural significance and operated and managed by the City of Edinburgh Council as Common Good Land.

The public is being invited to share its views on the project via a survey at the exhibition or by emailing the competition organisers, Malcolm Reading Consultants, at rosspavilion@malcolmreading.co.uk.

Southmere Village Library Competition

Peabody is seeking to select a firm of architects to provide architectural design and related services for a new, purpose-built library building at Southmere Village. Consultants from other required design disciplines in respect of the project will be appointed directly by Peabody. This could include working with artists to potentially incorporate art works within the building. This new civic building lies at the heart of the first phase of the planned 1,622 new homes to be delivered as part of the Abbey Wood and South Thamesmead Housing Zone.

13 July 2017 – Deadline for RfQ submission

PHL “Image Maker” Design Competition

Philadelphia International Airport and PHS are collaborating on a design competition to create an “Image Maker” landscape at the Airport. In line with PHS initiatives that transform public space, a Design Competition for PHL is an opportunity to demonstrate Philadelphia’s position as America’s Garden Capital and a chance to create a welcoming and iconic Philadelphia image.

Timeline:
7 July 2017 – Deadline for questions
21 July 2017 – RFQ response deadline

Canada (Modern Architectures in History series)

Rhodri Windsor Liscombe

Michelangelo Sabatino

(authors)

Reaktion Books Ltd.

London (2016)

Although Canada is a large country in area, its population of approximately 38 million—equivalent to the state of California— is concentrated near its southern border with the United States. The rapid expansion of its population over the past century has also led to a corresponding demand for housing and public services—and architects needed to design them. All this has coincided pretty much with a period highlighted by the rise of modern architecture on a global scale.

M20 – Museum of 20th Century Extension Competition

This is not what we fought for!

by Wilfried Wang*

Wilfried Wang’s commentary on the competition results for the extension of Mies’s Museum of the 20^th Century (M20) was published in the German journal, Bauwelt (40.2016). The author is the founder of the Berlin architectural practice Hoidn Wang Partner with Barbara Hoidn and has been the O’Neil Ford Centennial Professor in Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin since 2002. The text, translated by the Editor, is a slightly modified version (by the author) that appeared in Bauwelt.

Both in architectural and urbanistic terms, the jury’s misguided selection of the Herzog de Meuron entry as the winner of the M20 competition is another missed opportunity for Berlin.

By extending the form of this introverted structure to cover the entire competition site, little or no value is added to the immediate environs. To the contrary, that and the immense surfaces of the facades, right up to the edge of the pedestrian walkways, only serve to diminish the importance of the surrounding buildings. All the trees to the south of the site will disappear, and 90% of the outer walls of the building, regardless of the suggested use of porous brick detailing, are completely closed off. Only the eastern entrance of the Herzog de Meuron plan faces the main entrance of Scharoun’s State Library; the other two main entrances lack any such connection with the urban context. Thus, the Cultural Forum gains nothing in urban quality, but rather the sense of desolation will increase.

Ph: (502) 451-3623; Fax: (502) 451-3623

Website: https://competitions.org

E: scollyer@competitions.org

IMPORTANT NOTICE : Unless otherwise indicated, photographs of buildings and projects are from professional or institutional archives. All reproduction is prohibited unless authorized by the architects, designers, office managers, consortia or archives centers concerned. The Competition Project, Inc. is not held responsible for any omissions or inaccuracies, but appreciate all comments and pertinent information that will permit necessary modifications during future updates.

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