OFF GRID 2: Horseshoe Cove Competition: Healing the Damaged EdgeSponsor: The California Architectural Foundation Language: English Registration fee: none Eligibility: all residents of California Awards: Student Category Honor Award – $2,500 Merit Award – $1,250 Professional Category Honor Award – $2,500 Merit Award – $1,250 An additional Environmental Prize of $5,000 will be distributed to an accredited school of architecture in the State of California, to be named by the winner, to further sustainable design research. Timetable: 30 July, 2009 – submission deadline Jury: Mary E. Griffin, FAIA – Turnbull Griffin Haesloop Architects John King – San Francisco Chronicle Hsin-Ming Fung, AIA – Hodgetts & Fung Design Associates Mark W. Steele, FAIA, AICP – M.W. Steele Group, Inc. Design Challenge: A significant plot at the water’s edge along Horseshoe Cove remains vacant, damaged and undefined. This waterfront site offers a design opportunity to enhance the visitor’s experience of the San Francisco Bay. From casual bikers and hikers, to attendees at the Cavallo Conference Center, to the school children and families visiting the Bay Area Discovery Museum, a wide cross-section of the public is drawn to this location. A sensitive infill project that provides improved access to the water will only increase the appeal of Horseshoe Cove. Suggested program components: -Warming hut/shelter – minimum building program as follows: -Café – counter serving line with simple warming kitchen area; Indoor seating for 30 people 2- and 4-top + counter; views to the water are desirable. 2,200 net square feet (nsf) -Cove shop – NPS gift and bookshop supporting Fort Baker programs, coordinate with Cavallho Conference Center, Travis Marina and Discovery Museum; exterior presence and/or display windows desirable. 1,200 nsf -Rest Rooms – male & female to Title 24 ADA requirements. 600 nsf. -Water’s edge improvements -Demonstration area – garden, art/sculpture, sustainability, alternative energy Submission Requirements: Each entrant must submit two boards (A and B), explaining their project. The specifications of these boards are as follows: – two 30×40” at 200 dpi PDF format are required (5MB maximum size for each file to be used as primary files for printing boards), – Two JPEG versions of the same files (72 dpi, 600×800 pixels each – 150K maximum size for each file to be used for online exhibition) – a single detail/thumbnail (100×100 pixels), and a Microsoft Word compatible document containing project description text. For more information, go to: http://www.caf-e.org/offgrid.htm |
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Competition  Image: ©KPMB Architects Not to be outdone by other Canadian provincial capitals, Halifax has chosen to make its own ambitious museum statement on the city’s waterfront. New museums in Vancouver, BC, Calgary and Fredericton, New Brunswick, the latter two by KPMB Architects, are either in development or already under construction. Saskatoon’s Remai Modern by KPMB and OMA’s Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Montréal were more recently completed, and Vancouver’s new Art Museum by Herzog & de Meuron is still under development. 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/ Urban Adaptation Competition  Image ©Francesco Allaixand Julio Orduña Recently we are beginning to see a resurgence of wood as a primary building material, not only for detached residential housing, but also for multi-family and commercial urban structures. Masonry, steel, and composite materials are still the bread and butter of the construction industry; but wood may be making serious inroads into the future of commercial buildings. Yes, we have seen the use of wood in interiors of large buildings: one of the more impressive projects being that of the Christ the Light Cathedral by SOM in Oakland, California. Read more…  Aerial view of site – Courtesy National Finnish Museum When major cultural institutions in Finland plan a new building project, one can almost always assume that an open competition will be the vehicle by which the client settles on the building’s design. The only question is, will this be organized in a format open to local, Scandinavian, or international architects. In the case of the National Museum of Finland annex competition, it was open to architects throughout the world — resulting in 185 entries. Read more…
The Opening of Taichung’s Central Park by Catherine Mosbach/Philippe Rahm
 View from the south with downtown Taichung in the distance image: ©Mosbach/Rahm
The abandonment and closing of airports, including decommissioning those that were used for military purposes, has presented design communities with several opportunities to convert them entirely to civilian purposes. Notable among those which have been the result of competitions are Orange County Great Park, Irvine, California (Ken Smith Landscape Architects), The Estonian National Museum (Dan Dorell, Lina Ghotmeh and Tsuyoshi Tane), and Toronto’s less successful Downsview Park competition, whereby the winning design by OMA, with trees as the primary feature, has been basically ignored. Instead, the area has become the site of numerous commercial and residential projects.
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