Reimagine. Reconnect. Restore: The 280 Freeway Competition

Sponsor: Center for Architecture and Design, seedfund

Location: San Francisco

Type: Open, ideas

Eligiblity: Open to artists, academics, architects, planners, landscape architects and designers

Fee: None

Awards: $10,000 in prizes to be awarded

Registration and Submission Deadline: 31 July, 2013

Jury:
Allison Arieff, New York Times Opinionator columnist / SPUR Urbanist Editor
Alma Du Solier, Principal, Landscape Design, AECOM
Richard Johnson, Architect, Studio for Urban Projects
Walter Hood, Founder, Hood Design

Design Challenge: 

What if 280 came down? In Spring 2013, Mayor Ed Lee announced an exploration of the potential of removing Highway 280 north of 16th Street in San Francisco. The tradition of removing freeways is not a new one for our city– two neighborhoods, the Embarcadero and Hayes Valley, have enjoyed a renaissance through freeway demolition that healed scarred communities. Submit your ideas for new possibilities for what lies beneath Highway 280.

Competition participants are invited to submit concepts for public art, buildings, landscape treatments, public amenities and infrastructure, or other urban design interventions that are made possible through the replacement of the elevated Highway 280 north of 16th Street with a surface boulevard. Suggested areas of focus are the parcels of land freed up by this transformation, especially along the western edge of Mission Bay, as well as the open space/landscape opportunities at the west end of Mission Creek to unify both sides of the creek. Entrants are welcome to submit concepts that explore any aspect of the transformative opportunities introduced by the freeway removal.

For more information, go to: http://www.cadsf.org/seed/