Grand-Métis – The International Garden FestivalSponsors:
Jardins de Metis / Redford Gardens
Type:
Open, International
Language:
French/English
Location:
Grand-Métis, in the Gaspésie region of Québec, Canada
Timetable:
14 September, 2009 – call for entries
6 November, 2009 – deadline to send proposals
1 December, 2009 – public announcement of the chosen projects
1 February, 2010 – deadline for reception of documents showing the preliminary design for the garden
26 February, 2010 – deadline to submit pans and estimates for the construction of
the garden, incorporating comments by the technical committee of the Festival
12 March 2010 – Final approval of the plans and estimates by Festival’s artistic and technical committee
16 March, 2010 to 1 May, 2010 – Purchase of materials and preparation of plants by
the Festival in collaboration with designers
5 May, 2010 Construction begins by the Festival team
18-25 June, 2010 – Designers are on site to supervise the completion of the gardens, participate in the opening events, meet the public and the media
25 June, 2010 – Inauguration of the Festival
26 June, 2010 – The Festival opens to the public
27 June, 2010 – Designers meet with the public
3 October, 2010 – The Festival Closes Eligibility:
This call for entries is open to all professional designers (or teams of designers) from Québec, the rest of Canada and internationally that work in the fields of landscape architecture, architecture, visual arts, and design. The Festival encourages participants to form multidisciplinary teams to favour an approach which is open and encompassing of the various design disciplines. Multidisciplinary teams may be composed of a landscape architect and an architect, engineer, scenographer, artist or designer from other disciplines. We encourage each team to incorporate a landscape architect or a garden designer
Jury: TBA
The Competition:
The International Garden Festival is preparing its 11th edition and is issuing a call for proposals to select designers to create contemporary gardens around the theme of “Paradise”. The Festival will be held from June 26 to October 3, 2010 at Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens, in Grand-Métis, Québec, Canada. The International Garden Festival is recognized as one of the most important events of its kind in North America and one of the two leading annual garden festivals in the worlds. The Festival encourages participants to explore all facets of the garden, from the physical setting to creating a range of sensory, emotive and intellectual experiences for the visitor. Submission Requirements:
Entries should be sent electronically as a single PDF not exceeding 30 Mb. This should include a presentation page with the name of the project, designers, and respondent of the team. Contact information including: address, telephone, fax, email and website (if appropriate). A 150-word presentation of the team and a 70 word maximum answer to “In what way, in your view, will your project contribute to the renewal of the art of the garden?”
A schema 11” X 17” or A3 with a 150 word description of the concept and experience offered to visitors, a plan layout (min. scale 1/100) and a list of suggested plants.
A schema 11” X 17” or A3 with two main views or elevations, and a perspective showing the garden in its entirety.
Curriculum vitae of the designers, 2 page maximum per person
A schema 11” X 17” or A3 presenting up to three recent projects by the team and/or its designers
For more information, go to: http://www.refordgardens.com/english/ |
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… |
