UrbanSHED International Design CompetitionSponsor: NYC Buildings Department, AIA New York Chapter, etc Type: open, international, 2-stage Language: English Registration fee:
$90 – professionals
$45 – students Awards:
1st Prize – $10,000
UrbanSHED will provide a $5,000 stipend to support the finalists’ Stage II participation. Timetable:
18 September, 2009 – registration deadline
24 September, 2009 – deadline for questions
2 October, 2009 – stage I entries due
7 October, 2009 – finalists announced
14 December, 2009 – stage II entries due
17 December, 2009 – winner announced Jury:
Commissioner Robert D. LiMandri, NYC Buildings Department
Commissioner Amanda Burden, FAICP NYC Department of City Planning
Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, NYC Department of Transportation
David Childs, FAIA Skidmore Owings and Merrill and the Municipal Arts Society
Craig Dykers, Senior Partner/Director, Snohetta
Jean Oei, Morphosis
Craig Schwitter, P.E. Principal, Buro Happold
Frank Sciame, New York Building Congress
Ada Tolla, Partner LOT-EK Design Challenge: The goal of the urbanSHED International Design Competition is to challenge the global design community to re-think the current sidewalk shed standard and create a prototype worthy of today’s New York City.
The main objectives of this competitions are to conceptualize a cutting-edge sidewalk shed to protect pedestrians, improve the pedestrian experience– and make NYC even more attractive for generations to come. The goal is to seek a fresh, new sidewalk shed design that’s sustainable, economical, meets or exceeds current safety requirements and City regulations, improves technical and structural performance. For more information, go to: www.urbanSHED.org On August 19, AIANY will have another launch event at the Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place, 12-2pm. Comm. LiMandri, Department of Transportation Comm. Jeanette Sadik-Kahn, and AIANY Executive Director Rick Bell will speak at the Not Business As Usual series, a free lunch-and-lecture program aimed at addressing the special needs of architects affected by the economic downturn. They will discuss the details of urbanSHED competition, and why reimaging the New York City streetscape during the recession is a great opportunity for designers and the city. It promises to be an informative overview of the competition, and an inspiring discussion of how safety, sustainability and streetscape concerns can be incorporated into the next generation of sidewalk sheds. |
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… 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/
Image Courtesy Network Rail
From Grand Central Station to King’s Cross in London, railway stations have often represented some of the major architectural accomplishments of our times. But those edifices have been primarily located in great cities. In the U.K. there are over 2,000 stations located in medium-sized, small, and rural communities. Most of those are ‘quick stop’ locations, and not the destination terminals where space requirements often result in state of the art design. In July of last year, U.K.’s Network Rail, in collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) launched a competition to identify a concept for a design that would be suitable for the medium to small-sized rail stations, at the same time updating the program to fit the modern needs of such a facility. The competition was open internationally and received 213 entries from 34 countries last September. Read more… The Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Competition
Urban Confluence Silicon Valley winner: ©SMAR Architecture Studio
After several stops and starts over an extended period of time, the winner of the Urban Confluence Design Competition was named in early March, 2021. SMAR Architecture Studio’s The Breeze of Innovation, which prevailed over two other shortlisted finalists from the original 963 entries, won with a novel tower-like structure consisting primarily of hundreds of rods, generating energy while swaying in the wind. Read More…
Pedestrian perspective
The result of an effort from a professor at the TUM (Technische Universität München) to restore the Budludzha Monument in Bulgaria, located in a remote location on a mountain top in that country, we discovered that it originally was the result of a 1959 design competition won by the young Bulgarian architect, Georgi Stoilov. Read more… A Flawed Plan Leads to Budget Issues
Competition rendering of project looking south to Mies museum ©Herzog de Meuron
Once considered on the forefront of modern architecture in post-WWII Europe, Berlin has had its share of questionable decisions concerning important urban projects in recent history. Beginning with the rebirth of the Berlin Palace (Humboldt Forum) on the Spree by Italian architect, Franco Stella, and now followed by Herzog de Meuron’s controversial addition to Mies’s 20th Century Art Museum, the times when one could look to Berlin as a signpost of architectural innovation can only be viewed in the rear view mirror.
Read more… |
