Re-imagine PlayType: Open, RfP Eligibility: The competition is open to design professionals from around the country. Teams exhibiting professionally diverse expertise are encouraged. All entries must include a licensed Landscape Architect in the State of Colorado and must meet a 15% participation goal for Denver Minority or Women owned businesses (M/WBE). Design Challenge Denver Parks and Recreation (DPR) is challenging currently accepted definitions of play and is looking to re-think play as a unique, multi-faceted experience in an urban, multi-generational space in Denver’s Historic City Park. Highly motivated, qualified and experienced design teams are asked to submit their qualifications and ideas for this challenge. The new space will be unique and will include community context and advocacy. Click here for complete RFP The proposed project area is located in the western part of the park in the general vicinity of the existing Dustin Redd playground, a large, incredibly popular, wooden structure, built in 1996 by community volunteers, that is fast approaching the end of its useful lifespan. The need to remove this beloved but unsustainable structure opens up the opportunity to create a new space and experience surpassing our imagination, unique yet well suited to City Park. This new space will be innovative and dynamic in its design, invite all park visitors and neighbors while underscoring how play in all of its forms is an essential characteristic of healthy living for all citizens. Finding a location, selecting the appropriate size and scale of the project, determining any and all of its elements is part of the challenge for this competition. Selection Process The competition consists of the following steps: - Submittal of team/firm qualifications
- Selection of 10 to 15 teams to submit design concepts
- Public display and jury selection of 3 to 5 finalists;
An honorarium of $1,500 will be available to selected firms for preparation for the final round. - Public presentation and Q&A of finalists’ concepts and ideas
- Selection of successful team/design concept
- Contract execution with the City to develop a final design, cost estimate, CDs for a Phase 1, and oversee construction of Phase 1. There will be a project hold between design development and CDs/construction for phase 1 to allow for fundraising.
Timetable 22 March 2012 – Questions deadline 13 April 2012 – 1st Submittal Deadline (submitted digitally 13 April 2012 – Notify Short Listed Firms 1 May 2012 – 2nd Submittal Deadline (submitted digitally
Submittals
All submittals are made electronically to: City and County of Denver
Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR)
reimagineplay@denvergov.org |
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… |
