Musee National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec CompetitionSponsor: MNBAQ Type: open, international, 2-stage Language: communication and correspondence in English and French; all contractual documents and presentations must be in French. Eligibility: licensed architects and architectural firms Awards:
175,000CAD – to each competitor who presents a conceptual proposal to conform to the requirements of contractual documents
25,000CAD – to 10 teams not selected to continue to stage 2 Timetable:
17 July, 2009 – registration deadline
21 August, 2009 – submission deadline
4 September, 2009 – jury choices are announced
6 November, 2009 – deadline for stage 1 proposals
5 February, 2010 – deadline for stage 2 proposals
late february, 2010 – winner announced Jury:
Charles-Mathieu Brunelle, director of Montreal Nature Museum
Esther Trepanier, executive director of the museum
John Porter, chair of the Museum’s foundation
Jacques White, architect, director of the Ecole d’architecture, University Laval
Narsine Seraji, architect and urban planner, Atelier Seraji Architectes et associes
Xavier Geyter, architect, XDGA Architecten, Belgium
Andre Bourassa, chair of OAQ
Peter Murphy, architect, Town and Country planning, Quebec City Design Challenge:
The intent of this competition is to create a new pavilion for the museum and redefine the exhibition areas. The principal objective is to increase exhibition capacity and make it possible to increase the percentage of permanent collection on display, from 4.5% to 10%. An underground link will connect the new pavilion to the Charles Baillairge pavilion. This competition seeks to choose a distinctive project that will integrate the functions of a museum into the natural and historic setting of the Parc des Champs-de-Bataille and the urban fabric bordering it. The new image of the museum must reflect the 21st century and the dynamism of Quebec City. The principal elements of the project are as follows:
-gross surface area to be built (including the link): 10,120 sq. m.
-outdoor facilities: 3,1155 sq. m.
-refurbishing: 200 sq. m. For more information, go to: www.mnba.qc.ca Email: agrandissement@mnba.qc.ca |
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… |
