HLWSF Low Impact Development Design Competition HLWSF Low Impact Development Design Competition Sponsors: Houston Land/Water Sustainability Forum with co-sponsors including AIA-Houston, ASCE-Houston, Mischer Investments, Bayou Preservation Association, Harris County/Precinct 2, City of Houston/TIRZ 15 Type: 2-Stage, open Language: English Eligibility: Integrated design teams which include an architect, a landscape architect and a civil engineer Registration Fee: $250 Awards: $15,000 in each of three design challenge categories Timetable:
October 31, 2009 – Registration Deadline
December 14, 2009 – Submission Deadline
January 11, 2010 – Finalists
January 27, 2010 – Finals Event & Awards Ceremony Jury:
Stage 1 (80% of total final score) Arthur Storey PE, Executive Director, Harris County Public Infrastructure Division, Houston TX
Dana Nunez-Brown ASLA, Principal, Danos landdesign inc., Baton Rouge LA
Larry Coffman, President, LNSB LLLP Stormwater Services Group, Chesapeake Beach MD
Greg Papay FAIA, Principal, Lake-Flato Architects, San Antonio TX
Stephen Costello PE, Principal, Costello Inc., Houston TX Stage 2 (20% of total final score)
Finals Jury Panel will be made up of leading local developers and key local political influencers Design Challenge:
Each design challenge represents an actual property for which the owner has an interest in developing utilizing Low Impact Development methods. In an effort to provide the opportunity for the broadest professional participation and to demonstrate to local developers and political influencers the benefits of LID, entries will be accepted in the following three Challenge categories: Suburban Residential,
Urban Redevelopment, Green Roadway Submission Requirements:
At least one, but no more than two foamcore presentation boards (30”x 40”), on which the team’s key concepts and elements of the design are presented visually, including a summary of the economic and hydrologic modeling results. An electronic submission package must be provided on CD or USB drive, in Power Point (PPT) format, limited to 30 pages, including: All images and data contained on the presentation boards, images of all drawings, plans and details, written overview, presenting the design team’s concept, justification for the hydrologic/drainage modeling used to develop design conclusions, an explanation of project costs and an economic comparison with the same project if developed using traditional methods, submission plan sets must include at a minimum: Site Plans, Drainage Plans, Landscape and Irrigation Plans, Elevations, Details. For more information, go to: http://www.houstonLWSforum.org
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The Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Competition 
Image ©SMAR Architecture
After several stops and starts, a decision to name the winner of the Urban Confluence Design Competition appears to be nearing its conclusion. In 2017, three founders of a local non-profit established The San Jose Light Tower Corporation (SJLTC). The founders of the non-profit, Restauranteur Steve Borkenhagen, construction company executive, Jon Ball and filmmaker Thomas Wohlmut, saw its primary mission in designing and building a new tower as a San Jose and Silicon Valley landmark. This idea was based on the memory of the original San Jose Electric Light Tower (1881-1915), a 22-story structure, located in downtown San Jose and came down as the victim of a gale, never to be rebuilt. 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/
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.
Read more…
SMAR’s Winning Entry Gets the Green Light
Image: ©SMAR Architecture
The winning competition entry in the 2016 Science Island competition in Kaunas, Lithuania by SMAR Architects may only take five years to realize—from the date of the competition to completion. This is encouraging news, as the duration of such projects resulting from a competition can often take much longer—sometimes up to 8-10 years. Read more…
Night view of the memorial tapestry from Independence Avenue, with Gehry’s sketch of the Normandy cliffs.
Explaining the contributions of a World War II hero and later President of the United States on a very modest site on Independence Avenue just off the Washington Mall is tantamount to asking an author to describe the life of this person in no more than one paragraph. But on September 17th, after a long and bumpy journey, lasting almost 20 years and navigating a warren of the DC approval processes and public scrutiny, the Eisenhower Memorial finally was dedicated and opened to the public. Designed by Frank Gehry, it has received mixed reviews, the majority being more positive. But most have pointed out that the memorial is more impressive at night than in full daylight. This is due primarily to the illumination of an almost block-long metallic tapestry—featuring a sketch by Gehry, which depicts his interpretation of the cliffs of the Normandy coastline where the Americans landed on D-Day. Read more… |
