City in Between: Eastern Aalborg, Strategy for an International & Sustainable SuburbSponsor: City of Aalborg, Architect’s Association of Denmark
Type of competition: International, Request for Permission
Language: English, Danish
Location: Aalborg, Denmark
Eligibility: Strategic urban planners, architects ore landscape architects for example together with economists, ethnogeographers, sociologists, anthropologists or futurologists. The competition organizer encourages foreign companies to participate. They are demanded to collaborate with a Danish company to ensure full understanding of the local laws and language.
Registration Fee: None
Jury: The evaluation committee will consist of politicians and officials of the Municipality of Aalborg; representatives from Realdania; two discipline judges nominated by the Architects’ Association of Denmark; as well as a representative of the advisory committee for ‘Suburbs of the future’, selected by Realdania. Tom Nielsen – Associate Professor ph d Architect, Aarhus School of Architecture Mats Olsson – Architect, Urban Development Strategies, SE Awards: Provided that an entry in conformity with the above conditions is handed in in time, each team will receive a fee of DKK 200,000 exclusive of VAT. The competition organizer reserves the right to select up to two winners, who will be invited to tender and negotiate. Provided that a entry in conformity with the above conditions is handed in in time in phase two, each team in phase two will receive a fee of DKK 350,000 exclusive of VAT. Timeline: 20 December 2011 – Deadline for Applications 16 January 2011 – Selected candidates notified Design challenge:
The international competition, “City in between – Eastern Aalborg, strategy for an international & sustainable suburb”, demonstrates the Municipality of Aalborg’s big ambitions to contribute to the international debate on large scale strategic development of the sustainable suburb. The overall focus is to obtain qualified proposals describing how to promote cohesion within and among the areas of the suburb – physical, social, societal and organizational. The challenge is also to create synergi among the future investments.
In the next 20 years, investments for more than DKK 10 billion have been planned in the competition area. Large investments includes extension of Aalborg University and the sports and leisure center Gigantium, a new University Hospital, redevelopment of the Kildeparken residential area, as well as 400 new youth apartments near Aalborg University.
Parallel to these investments, it has been decided to establish a high-class public transport link connecting the competition area, Eastern Aalborg, with the city centre, and to launch initiatives to promote bicycle traffic. Some of the competition themes are:
– New type of housing in the suburb; orms of ownership and target groups. – Mobility; sustainable transport and accessibility in the broad sense. – Multifunctional meeting places; daily life, identity and catalysts. – Local resources; physical spaces and new partnerships.
Participants are to integrate the themes with the following selected potentials of the area:
– Landscape; ecological, recreational and social contexts. – International aspects; knowledge workers, cooperative relations and multiethnic residents. – Strengthened development of the knowledge clusters in the area; professional knowledge clusters, entrepreneurship etc.
The competition will ask for:
– A strategy for the physical development of the competition area, which involves the competition themes and potentials, focusing on both short and the long term. What will it take to “kickstart” the development? – Organizational/economic models that contribute to realizing the strategy for the physical development in the different steps of the development, including kick starters for the long-term process. – Selection of development areas that may contribute to increase the cohesion and sustainability of the suburb by integrating the themes with the closely selected potentials of the area. The contents and nature of the areas are to be described by drawings, charts and text.
Contact Information: http://www.cowi.dk |
 Completed IMEX by Tuck Hinton Architects. Photo courtesy Anecdote It is not often that we look back to a competition that occurred three decades ago that was also covered in detail by COMPETITIONS (Vol. 4, #4; pp. 14-27). What made the Chattanooga IMAX different back in 1994 was that the article covering that competition was authored by Prof. Marleen Davis, then Dean of the University of Tennessee’s School of Architecture and a member of the jury panel. This was not just a short article, covering the high points of the competition with a few talking points about the winning design. This 4,000+ word document also described in detail the jury’s observations about all the finalists, including the honorable mentions—one of the few times we have gained such a detailed glimpse in this country from the inside of the competition process. Read more… Preparation and Organization of Design Competitions  [phase 1] Benjamin Hossbach / Christian Lehmhaus / Christine Eichelmann 210 × 230 mm, 192 pp. over 600 images softcover ISBN 978-3-86922-316-2 (English) ISBN 978-3-86922-240-0 (German) Dom Publishers €48 in EU (For price abroad, see below) Founded in 1998 in Berlin, Phase 1 has been a principal player in the organization and facilitation of design competitions, not only in Germany, but abroad as well. The accomplishments of the firm have been well documented in three volumes—The Architecture of Competitions—beginning in 2i006. Whereas these books mainly focused on the results of the competitions they have administered, the present work, Fundamentals of Competition Management, takes one from the very beginnings of the competition process to its conclusion. The authors envisioned the publication as “three three books in one: one „blue book“ with example projects, one „yellow book“ with statements and the „white book“ with the actual guideline to competition management.” Although there have been a number of handbooks covering the administration of designcompetitions a study covering the entire process in such detail is a welcome addition to the the literature in this field. As a contribution to this important democratic process that has yielded exceptional design for decades, this volume is not only valid for Europe, but a current overview of the process for those globally who wish to raise the level of design by virtue of a design competition. -Ed Foreign institutions wishing to obtain a copy of the book will recieve a discount to cover the cost of foreign shipping. To obtain a copy for that offer, go to: [email protected] Winning entry by Luca Poian Forms Image ©Filippo Bolognese images Good design seldom happens in a vacuum. And so it was with an international competition for a new mosque in Preston, U.K. A mid-sized city of 95,000, and located in Lancashire near the west coast and almost equally distant from London and Glasgow, Preston has a storied past, going all the way back to the Romans and the late Middle Ages, where it was the site of significant battles. During the Industrial Revolution, the city prospered, and it was not until after World War II that Preston experienced the British version of the U.S. Rust Belt. In the meantime, the city has experienced an upswing in economic activity, with an unemployment rate of only 3%. Aside from the appearance of new industries, the city has benefitted from the establishment of Central Lancashire University (CLU), which employs over 3,000 faculty and staff, and, as such, is one of the regions major employers. Any new university requires new facilities, and one of the most outstanding examples of this at CLU was the new Student Centre and Plaza, a result of a 2016 RIBA-sponsored competition won by Hawkins/Brown Read More
Changdong Station winner – image ©D & B Partners Architects
Whereas international competitions for real projects have become a rarity lately, Korea is a welcome exception. Among the plethora of competition announcements we receive almost weekly, several have ended with foreign firms as winners. But the history of welcoming international participants does go back several years. One notable early example was the Incheon Airport competition, won by Fentress Bradburn Architects (1962-70).
Among the more recent successes of foreign firms was the Busan Opera House competition, won by Snøhetta (2013-) and the Sejong Museum Gardens competition, won by Office OU, Toronto (2016-2023).
Read more…  1st Place: Zaha Hadid Architects – night view from river – Render by Negativ Arriving to board a ferry boat or cruise ship used to be a rather mundane experience. If you had luggage, you might be able to drop it off upon boarding, assuming that the boarding operation was sophisticated enough. In any case, the arrival experience was nothing to look forward to. I recall boarding the SS United States for a trip to Europe in the late 1950s. Arriving at the pier in New York, the only thought any traveler had was to board that ocean liner as soon as possible, find one’s cabin, and start exploring. If you were in New York City and arriving early, a nearby restaurant or cafe would be your best bet while passing time before boarding. Read more…  Helsinki Central Library, by ALA Architects (2012-2018) The world has experienced a limited number of open competitions over the past three decades, but even with diminishing numbers, some stand out among projects in their categories that can’t be ignored for the high quality and degree of creativity they revealed. Included among those are several invited competitions that were extraordinary in their efforts to explore new avenues of institutional and museum design. Some might ask why the Vietnam Memorial is not mentioned here. Only included in our list are competitions that were covered by us, beginning in 1990 with COMPETITIONS magazine to the present day. As for what category a project under construction (Science Island), might belong to or fundraising still in progress (San Jose’s Urban Confluence or the Cold War Memorial competition, Wisconsin), we would classify the former as “built” and wait and see what happens with the latter—keeping our fingers crossed for a positive outcome. Read More…  2023 Teaching and Innovation Farm Lab Graduate Student Honor Award by USC (aerial view) Architecture at Zero competitions, which focus on the theme, Design Competition for Decarbonization, Equity and Resilience in California, have been supported by numerous California utilities such as Southern California Edison, PG&E, SoCAl Gas, etc., who have recognized the need for better climate solutions in that state as well as globally. Until recently, most of these competitions were based on an ideas only format, with few expectations that any of the winning designs would actually be realized. The anticipated realization of the 2022 and 2023 competitions suggests that some clients are taking these ideas seriously enough to go ahead with realization. Read more… |