Cooling Towers Design CompetitionResults The first stage of the competition attracted 34 entries that were assessed anonymously. Six finalists presented their design proposals to the jury panel. 1st Prize Insite Environments 2nd Prize DLA Architecture Ltd 3rd Prize Astudio Ltd in collaboration with Alfredo Caraballo 3 Other Finalists Moxon Architects Sheffield Wildlife Trust Sprunt ____________ Announcement SPONSOR: Groundwork Sheffield TYPE: Open, international, anonymous, 2-stage, ideas LOCATION: Tinsley, Sheffield TIMETABLE: 30 May 2007 – Registration Deadline 06 Jun 2007 – Stage 1 Submission Deadline (14:00 hrs) 19 Jul 2007 – Stage 2 Finalists Interview with Jury JURY: to include a Landscape Adviser; Architect Adviser and representatives from E.on UK (the principal landowner); Groundwork Sheffield; English Partnerships; Sheffield City Council and Rotherham Metropolitan District Council ELIGIBILITY: architects, landscape architects, engineers, town planners and urban designers (or teams thereof) AWARDS: 1st Prize – £4,000 2nd Prize – £2,000 3rd Prize – £1,000 The remaining finalists will each be paid a contribution of £250 towards expenses incurred in attending the final interview. FEE: £35.00 THE COMPETITION: Participants are invited to submit imaginative, inspirational ideas for the future use of a brownfield site situated adjacent to the M1 Tinsley Viaduct in Sheffield. The competition site occupies a key gateway location, lying just off the M1 motorway opposite the Meadowhall Shopping Centre (which attracts some 13 million shoppers per year). The area has been the focus of significant public interest over the past year, due to the selection of the two disused Cooling Towers located on the site for the Channel 4 Big Art program. The Cooling Towers are a highly emotive issue with the general public. People either loathe the Towers considering them an eyesore, or love them, regarding them as a local landmark that welcomes residents and visitors alike to Sheffield. What would it be like to drive along the M1 without the Towers looming over the viaduct is a frequently asked question? Notwithstanding the Channel 4 program and local campaigners’ determination to transform the Towers into a public artwork, demolition remains the preferred option of the landowner due to the on-going maintenance liability that they represent. Competitors can choose to either incorporate or exclude the Cooling Towers from their design ideas. Despite its industrial setting, the site is significant as the River Don and Tinsley Canal which cross the site are an important recreational resource and wildlife corridor that links to the adjacent Blackburn Meadows Nature Reserve. The challenging site requires an innovative approach for its redevelopment, which if implemented, would be visible by the thousands of motorists who use the two-tier Tinsley Viaduct every day. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Cooling Towers Site Competition RIBA Competitions 6 Melbourne Street Leeds LS2 7PS UK Tel: +44(0)113-234-1335 Fax: +44(0)113-246-0744 riba.competitions@inst.riba.org http://www.architecture.com/competitions http://www.groundwork-sheffield.org.uk |
An Ideas Competition in Berlin Seeks Answers 
Winning entry perspective Image: ©AllesWirdGut Architekten
Berlin developer HOWOGE recently staged what was regarded as a “planning Laboratory” competition for a model satellite in northwest Berlin. The brief for this invited competition noted that the urban sprawl, which had accompanied the reunification of Germany(and Berlin) in 1989, was low density in character, occupying wide swaths of suburban areas around the city. With previous high density, and now controversial Berlin projects in mind—the problems with Berlin’s high-density Gropius-Stadt as a warning signal—the sponsor here suggested that lessons learned from past mistakes could be avoided with a high-quality design strategy… Read more… Winner Announced for New Preston Mosque Competition 
LUCA POIAN FORMS Image courtesy RIBA
Facilitator: RIBA
Location: Preston, U.K.
Type: International, open
The competition attracted over 200 entries from 40 different countries.
Five finalists were chosen to participate in a second phase:
Winner
• LUCA POIAN FORMS, London, UK
Finalists - BLANKPAGE Architects, Lebanon
- Borough Architects + buchhandler-nelli + elca, Cambridge, UK
- Mcheileh Studio, New York (Highly Commended by the Evaluation Panel)
- TABE SHOURI, New York
RIBA competition website:
www.architecture.com/competitions 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/ Astrakhan Looks to Raise Its Quality of Life Index 
Aerial view of downtown Astrakhan
Planning competitions with a strong landscape component take many forms, including some for plazas and gateways to major town centers, city neighborhood sites with multi-story housing units, university campus plans and finally, comprehensive city plans—the latter either being for new towns, as in China, or strategies for the improvement of existing cities—as was here the case with Astrakhan, a major city on the Volga delta, and the Caspian Sea. Read more… Hightech Designs as Low- and Mid-Rise Research Models Siemens Healthineers Campus, Bengaluru 
Aerial View of site, Rendering: ©Eller + Eller Architekten
Siemens new Healthineers campus in Bengaluru, India, is hardly a milestone in the design of major R&D facilities. Although the winning design by Eller + Eller Architekten did include the necessity to go higher than the 2- to 4-story models we often find, whether in Silicon Valley, Detroit, or in Munich, the relatively small site for such a large program did ask for that campus feel, asking the competitors to focus on the interdisciplinary factor as well as sustainability and cost.
Read more… SWA/Balsley Wins Paveletskaya Plaza Landscape Competition 
Aerial view at night – courtesy SWA/Balsley 5+ Design
Of the nine railway stations in Moscow, Paveletskaya is the largest and one of the last of those that opened around the turn of the century. Compared to other Moscow stations, Paveletskaya, designed by Alexander Krasovsky and opened in 1900, represented a lower-key presence in its sprawling configuration, similar to palaces such as a Sans Souci without the ornamentation. The original site for the recent competition included a small park facing the station, bordered on one side by the Ring Road. Post WWII, the site was bifurcated by a road, thus separating the front entrance of the station from the grassy area facing it. Read more… |
