Architecture at ZeroSponsor: PG&E Zero Net Energy Pilot Program Type of competition: Open, international, ideas, one-stage Language: English Location: California Eligibility: Architects,engineers and designers Registration Fees: (AIA San Francisco is an electronic registration process) Architects, Engineers, and Designers:
$100 Entry Fee + $60 Board printing fee
Architectural and Engineering Students:
Free Entry + $60 Board printing fee
(Boards will be printed at ARC on 100% recycled material at a discounted price only available to Architecture at Zero entrants. Boards may not be printed by the entrant and submitted to AIA SF, all boards must be submitted digitally to ARC.) Timeline: 29 November 2011 – Submissions deadline Jury: • Susan Szenasy, Editor in Chief, Metropolis Magazine
• Bob Berkebile, FAIA, BNIM
• Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, Brooks + Scarpa Architecture
• Allison Williams, FAIA, Perkins + Will
• Stephen Selkowitz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Awards: $25,000 in total prize money will be awarded. There will be at least two awards given, one for a student entry and one for a professional entry. Final decisions and prize money distribution will be made solely by the jury. Design challenge: The design site is an industrial urban infill site in Emeryville, California. The design challenge is to create a mixed-use building or set of buildings that includes housing, retail space and a new public library branch. All buildings designed as part of the competition must be grid-tied. The project must meet the competition’s criteria for zero net energy: the energy use of the building(s) and its occupants must be less than or equal to the energy produced by on-site renewable generation (as measured over a calendar year).
In addition, the site program will respond to the specific conditions of the City’s general plan, including open space requirements for the site, and the extension of the street grid into the site. Taken together, these factors will provide an exciting and challenging group of “real world” conditions. For more information, go to: www.architectureatzero.com/Architecture_at_Zero/Home.html E-mail: architectureatzero@aiasf.org |
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/ Hangang District Urban Design International Master Competition
1st place entry by Dominique Perrault Architecture (image ©Dominique Perrault Architect)
China’s planning priorities for their urban areas experienced a sharp turn after the post-Mao reforms took place. During the early post-WWII period, when Soviet influence in the early urbanization of China dominated, industrial development took precedence over all other issues, with heritage, conservation, residential planning, and the amenities associated with it, being almost entirely neglected. Read more…
Winning design by ©Moreau Kusunoki /Genton
Although one might normally assume that local firms participating in a competition might have a clear advantage over foreign competitors, this has seldom been the case: just see Sydney’s Opera House, won by a Danish architect, and Toronto’s City Hall, won by a Finn—as evidence that well devised competition briefs as adequate documentation can create a level playing field for potential competitors, regardless of their location.
Read more…
Jensen Architects – Winning entry (Honor Award) Beginning in 2011, Architecture at Zero, a collaboration between the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the California chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIACA), was established to investigate the role architecture might play in reducing energy consumption in the built environment. Since then, every year has seen a new site and building type selected as a design challenge in what has become one of the world’s most interesting international competitions.
As a sign of its mounting popularity, the competition received 237 registrations from 49 countries and, according to the professional adviser, about 150 entries— all this during the Covid-19 virus pandemic, when all were compelled to work from home. Read more… An Ideas Competition in Opposition to a Concrete Design
Entry by TheeAe (Image © TheeAe)
In early 2020, a group advocating a new approach to the design of the Los Angeles Museum of Art (LACMA)—The Citizens’ Brigade to Save LACMA—organized a competition to counter an existing design by the Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor. Already commissioned by the LACMA administration, the project is slated to begin almost immediately with the demolition of four LACMA buildings—three existing and one new. Moreover, the existing plan to incorporate all of the existing collections under one roof isn’t covered by the Zumthor plan. This obvious lack of exhibit space was the focus of a query by the Ahmanson Foundation, a major donor of artworks to LACMA in the past. Upon not receiving assurances from LACMA that those donated works would be exhibited, but possibly held in storage and hidden from public view, the Foundation cut all ties with LACMA. Finally, the plan by Zumthor foresees the new structure not only occupying much of the new space created by demolition, but extends part of the new building over Wiltshire Boulevard. As one might anticipate from Zumthor, the construction of the structure is also primarily of concrete, thereby raising the cost per SF. So no matter how highly finished this material turns out to be, it does in essence represent a brutalist structure replacing an eclectic ensemble. Read more… National Railway Museum Central Hall (U.K.)
Winning entry by Feilden Fowles (image © Fielden Fowles)
If one were to search for a railway museum in the U.K., London would seem to be an obvious choice. But, as it happens, its location is in the northeastern city of York, far from the major cultural and economic centers of the country. But despite its distance from the major metropolitan areas to the south and west, York has managed to become the focal point of research into the history of rail in the U.K., supplemented by a major museum. Here we are not just talking about some posters, but sheds replete with a large collection of vintage trains. Read more… |
