Intersections: Grand Concourse Beyond 100Intersections: Grand Concourse Beyond 100
Type: Open, International
Entry Fee: None
Timetable: Registration Deadline: April 24, 2009
Submission Deadline: May 1, 2009
Finalists Contacted: July 2009 Design Challenge: The Grand Concourse was conceived during the height of the City Beautiful Movement as the residential Champs Elysees of the Bronx, a broad promenade intended to inspire harmonious social order through grand design. Designed as a wide, tree-lined thoroughfare with carriage drives, bridle paths and sunken cross-streets, it was conceived in 1870 by engineer Louis Risse as a means to connect Manhattan to the parks of the Northern Bronx. Built in 1909, the Concourse stretches 4 miles in length and measures 180 feet across, with tree-lined dividers separating it into three distinct roadways. Today, the Grand Concourse hosts the largest collection of Art Deco and Art Moderne style buildings in America. The buildings were—and still are—grand, with elaborate ornamentation, large lobbies, landscaped courtyards, elevators, large windows and many amenities that older Manhattan apartments lacked. Mirroring the tumultuous history of the Bronx itself, the Concourse has survived the ravages of arson, dramatic shifts in population, and an overall decline in the quality of life since the 1970s. Today, however, the Bronx is improving with increased development and investment. Bronx communities are thriving, alive with the art, music, and cultural and social vibrancy that has defied decades of depression. This competition challenges entrants to answer these questions: - What does the Bronx of the future need its grandest boulevard to be?
- How can the Grand Concourse help inspire harmony and community through design?
- Is the Grand Concourse of today obsolete? Can the Grand Concourse of tomorrow be a force that catalyzes the Bronx’s positive evolution?
Successful submissions could address these questions at any scale – from the individual human body to city block to neighborhood to entire borough. Entrants are encouraged to address not only the area’s built environment, but the natural, cultural, and social environments as well. The best ideas, designs, descriptions and images will be selected by some of the world’s most distinguished designers, architects, artists and critics, and will be exhibited at The Bronx Museum in November and December 2009 as part of the Intersections: Grand Concourse at 100 — Future exhibition. Contact Information: |
The Chicago Architecture Club Shines the Spotlight on Another Endangered Landmark 
Public Pool Image: ©Perkins&Will
What do Bertrad Goldberg and Helmut Jahn have in common? Besides having high-profile buildings threatened by demolition, both served as subject matter for two competitions sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Club (CAC)—raising public consciousness about their impending fate. They both produced buildings in a city famous for its architecture that have been abandoned: Goldberg’s Future Prentice Women’s Hospital, demolished in 2014 after a valiant effort by preservationists to save it from the wrecking ball; and Jahn’s Thompson Center, now the object of a similar effort by the State of Illinois to sell it to a developer. Read more… 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/ 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 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… |
