Curbside Action at the New Museum: The IDEAS CITY StreetFest Tenting Competitionby Stanley Collyer
Winning entry by DavidsonRafailidis (photos of completed project courtesy of DavidsonRafailidis) New York is no stranger to design competitions for smaller projects, especially where the focus is on its streets. Among some of those, either proposed or realized, were the recent Urban Shed competition, protecting pedestrians on the sidewalks from falling debris; and, going back almost two decades, the Urban Outhouse competition. As street fairs are pretty commonplace in New York, it would seem only logical that an ideas competition for a temporary “tent” structure in front of New York’s New Museum would also generate a lot of interest. As part of the IDEAS CITY Festival during the first week in May, this year’s event included one hundred independent project and public events occupying over a square block around the New Museum. Inventors, small business owners, artists, ecologists and activists shared their products and ideas, demonstrating the value of Untapped Capital—the Festival’s current theme.
The competition, sponsored jointly by the Storefront for Art and Architecture and the New Museum, drew over eighty entries from around the world. The purpose of the competition was to explore outdoor spaces that “produce new ways for collective gathering and city engagement.” The intention of the sponsors was to envision fabricating a minimum of ten structures covering approximately 1000-1500 square feet, accommodating a multiplicity of activities. According to the competition brief, “This competition asks for designs that envision street tents, not only as shelters, but also as active elements within the collective construction and understanding of the city. StreetFest challenged Architects, Artists and Engineers to re-envision the performativity—the material, social, and educational possibilities—of temporary outdoor structures.”
In addition to stipulating that the tent structure should be in the neighborhood of 1000-1500 square feet, a maximum amount of flexibility in accommodating different spatial needs was paramount. The program stipulated that the structure accommodate the following formal configurations or typologies, which can vary in form and size and should be able to accommodate the following programs as well as propose new functions:
- Exhibitors who are likely to present workshops, classrooms, exhibits, and/or performances
- Eating/talking areas related to parked food trucks
- Vendors who will sell products
- Several performances areas
Competing teams were to be composed of at least one artist and one engineer. The competition winner would receive a stipend of $20,000 to fulfill the construction of their design for the Street Fair.
To adjudicate the competition entries, a five-member jury included:
- Cristobal Correa, Associate Principal, Buro Happold Consulting Engineers
- Eva Franch i Gilabert, Director and Chief Curator, Storefront for Art and Architecture
- Michael Manfredi, Principal, Weiss/Manfredi
- Mary Miss, artist and author of City as Living Laboratory
- Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director, New Museum
The panel reduced the number of finalists in the final round to three, and, after four hours of deliberation, ranked the shortlisted finalists as follows:
Winning Design
Title: Mirror Mirror
Team: Davidson Rafailidis
Buffalo, NY
Runner-up 01
Title: Street Wear
Team: EFGH – Hayley Eber, Frank Gesualdi & Laura Sansone
New York, NY
Runner-up 02
Title: Common Marquee
Team: MAIO – Maria Charneco, Alfredo Lérida, Guillermo López & Anna Puigjaner
New York, NY
The Winning Design
Completed project (photos courtesy of DavidsonRafailidis) As a base unit covering twelve feet by sixteen feet, “MirrorMirror” includes a simple forty-five-degree-angled gable roof made from mirroring panels. A single unit will house small programs. When combined, the units create a large barn-like structure that will be host to larger StreetFest gatherings. The design utilizes aluminum frames with Mylar mirror foil that are often used as glassless mirrors in dance studios. The material’s modification for use as a construction element is innovative and in line with the goals of the Festival and its theme, Untapped Capital.
According to juror, Eva Franch i Gilabert, “MirrorMirror’ is a disruptive act in the perception of the city: it constructs serendipitous encounters through its mirrored, inclined walls. It shelters the activities any street tent does, but it does so by generating a network of gazes, encounters, and surprises where the citizen becomes self-conscious of its participation and construction of a collective act. Disorienting we said? Disruptive indeed!”
The DavidsonRafailidis team consisted of:
- Project team: Georg Rafailidis (lead), Stephanie Davidson
- Project staff: Jia Ma, Aleksandr Marchuk
- Fabrication and assembly: Spielman Fabrication LLC, Jon Spielman
- Structural engineer design phase: Matthias Michel, Imagine Structure, Frankfurt, Germany
- Structural engineer realization: Peter Grace, State University of New York at Buffalo
- Fabrication support by students of the University at Buffalo: Zakaria Boucetta, John Costello, Chris Ortloff, James Rice, Matthew Rosen, Fan Yang
- Mirror panels: LiteMirror—Shatterproof Glassless Mirrors, litemirror.com, Irvington, New York
Completed project (photos courtesy of DavidsonRafailidis)   
  
 
Presentation boards by DavidsonRafailidis (click to enlarge)
Streetwear by EFGH proposed a textile theme supported by a kit of parts, scaffolding which could be rearranged to fit different configurations. Although certainly feasible from the budget point of view, this interesting idea remained just that, as the jury relegated it to a runnerup status. The EFGH principals were: Hayley Eber, Frank Gesualdi and Laura Sansone.
Presentation boards by EFGH(click to enlarge)
Common Marquee by the MAIO team came up with a unique approach to a combination tent/entrance canopy. Supported by two cranes, the two-story fabric suggested a curtain over the entrance to the museum, leaving one to often wonder exactly what they might be hiding behind it. Perceived budget issues with realizing this idea no doubt factored into the jury’s decision to recognize its merits as a runnerup.
 
Presentation boards by MAIO (click to enlarge)
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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
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 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… |
