Taipei Music Center International CompetitionSponsor: Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government, Taiwan, R.O.C. Type: open, 2-stage Eligibility: licensed architects Registration fee: none Awards: Stage 1: Honorable mentions will receive NT$660,000 (approximately $20,000) Stage 2: Each of the Short-list tenderers submittiong the stage 2 proposal documents will receive NT$1,650,000 (approximately $50,000) Timetable: 1 September, 2009 – deadline for question submissions 19 October, 2009 – stage 1 submission deadline 23 October, 2009 – announcement of the short-lists 10 November, 2009 – site visit 26 January, 2010 – stage 2 submission deadline 29 January, 2010 – announcement of winners Jury: Lars Lerup. Dean of Rice School of Architecture Brett Steele, Director of Architectural Association School of Architecture Michael Speaks, Dean of the College of Design and Professor of Architecture at the University of Kentucky Kris Yao, Principal of Artech Architects Shu-Chang Kung, Principal of AURA Architects & Associates Monica Kuo, Dean of Department of Landscape Architecture at the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan Wei-Gong Liou, assistant professor of Department of Sociology at Soochow University Design Challenge: To encourage pop music creation, patronage performing talents and teams, integrate relevant peripheral industrial development, the R.O.C. plans to build a large pop music performance center in northern Taiwan with outdoor performing plaza and relevant measures. It is aimed to support development of the pop music industry in Taiwan with the goal of becoming the leading center of the Chinese creative music development internationally and for industrial experiment. The government is now actively pushing for the Northern Taiwan Pop Music Center Construction Plan. With an area of approximately 7.65 hectares, the center base is located in Nangang District, Taipei City, nearby the MRT Kunyang Station. The principal space design comprises of an indoor performing hall with 4500-6000 seats, an outdoor performing space with 15000 standing seats, exhibition space for reputed musicians, a digital library, a medium and small indoor exhibition and performing live house, industrial communities and incubation space, etc. For more information, go to: http://www.tpmc.com.tw/html/proj_e.html |
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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