Louisville Children’s Museum Competition: Revitalizing a Downtown EdgeSponsor: AIA, Central Kentucky Chapter; CSI, Louisville Chapter
Competition Manager: The Competition Project
Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Languages: English
Type: Open, international, ideas
Eligiblity: The competition is open to design professionals and students currently registered in accredited schools of architecture programs in their country of residence in the areas of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering and planning. Teams including all or part of the above are welcome. Student teams should included no more than six(6) members. Students are required to validate residence in a institutional program in any of the above upon registration. As jury members are not local, and the process is anonymous, AIA and CSI members belonging to the local chapters may enter.
Registration and Submission Deadline: 10 February 2014
Fee: Professionals – $75 Student teams – $60 Individual students – $30 Awards: First Prize – $6000 Second Prize – $3000 Third Prize – $1000 Honorable Mentions (3) Jury: - Sylvia Smith, FAIA, Senior Partner, FxFowle Architects, New York office
- Michael Speaks, Dean, School of Architecture, Syracuse University
- Susan Szenasy, Editor, METROPOLIS magazine, New York
- Carol Drucker, Principal, Drucker Zajdel Structural Engineers (DZSE), Naperville, Illinois
- Leigh Breslau, AIA, Partner, Trahan Architects / Chicago Studio
- Marc L’Italien, FAIA, Partner, EHDD, San Francisco
Design Challenge:
Designing a Louisville Children’s Museum, Revitalizing a Downtown Edge, is an international ideas competition sponsored by the local chapters of the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) and the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Louisville is one of the few cities of its size without a museum dedicated specifically to children between the ages of 2-13, and this museum is to be considered as a model to fill that vacuum.
The choice of this site for the competition is intended to address the following issues: • Located next to the city’s main public library, the museum could draw on the large numbers of children accompanied by their parents visiting the library. • Until now, most of the development and investment in the city has been concentrated in the downtown area bordering the Ohio River. More recently, the City of Louisville has begun to target the area at the edge of the downtown core for revitalization, starting with Broadway, and extending south to Old Louisville. Although the area does include some important institutions, such as Spalding University, Bridgehaven Mental Health Services, numerous churches and housing for the elderly, it lacks in density and urban activity. By implementing a strong program at the edge, with the Children’s Museum as an iconic arrival factor, and the addition of important design elements across Second Street to fill two gaps now used as parking lots, this project could be an important building block for neighborhood revitalization, over and beyond the targeted site. Bringing more traffic to the site should eventually result in more retail and commercial ammenties.
The competition, open to both professionals and students, will seek innovative ideas, both in the programmatic organization of the museum itself, as well as in the building’s architectural expression. In addition, circulation throughout the entire site and the museum’s relationship to its neighbor, i.e., the main library and the other designated buildings in the program, is essential.
For more information, go to: http://venturearete.org/LouisvilleChildrensMuseumCompetition/LouisvilleChildrensMuseumCompetition.html |
The Makasiiniranta South Harbor Competition
Helsinki South Harbour and Tori Quarter Suomen Ilmakuva Helsinki. Image credit/ Tietoa Finland, Janne Hirvonen
As a prelude to a competition for the design of a new Architecture and Design Museum to be located in Helsinki’s South Harbor, the City of Finland staged an open competition to establish a roadmap for the future redevelopment of the Makasiiniranta harbor area, the last old harbor area to be transformed for public use in Helsinki. The competition for the museum is scheduled to take place later this year; but the entire surrounding area has come up with a plan to review improvements for the entire harbor environment.
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/ Vltava Philharmonic Hall Design Competition  View to Concert Hall from bridge ©BIG Classical music is still part of a vibrant musical scene in Prague, with at least four principal venues hosting concerts, ballet and opera. As a modern European city, the only missing venue from these choices is a state of the art concert hall. Other European neighbors have also recently staged competitions for such projects: Munich, won by Cukrowicz Nachbaur Architekten of Bregenz, Austria; Belgrade, won by AL_A of London; and Vilnius, Lithuania, won by Arquivio Architects of Spain. It should be noted, however, that one of the most important competitions for a concert hall, not only in Europe, but the world, was the 1961 Berlin Philharmonic hall competition, won by Hans Scharoun (below). It was the interior of that building, in particular, that served as a model for many others that followed, one of the first being Los Angeles’ Disney Hall by Frank Gehry. Read more… Budapest’s Nyugati Rail Station Competition  Image courtesy Budapest Development Agency ©Grimshaw Completed in 1877, Budapest’s Nyugati Railway Station has witnessed many of the twists and turns of Hungarian history: the Austro-Hungarian Empire, revolutions of post-World War I and 1956, and various shades of expansion and shrinkage in their territory. Its important location in Europe’s history as a contested land in southeastern Europe has not only served as a path for armies of conquest, but as a matter of great interest for major powers. Amid all the changes it has experienced, Hungary, and Budapest in particular, has retained a fascination for outsiders, making it one of Europe’s high profile tourist attractions. Read more… A Quest for that Elusive Connective Formula  First Place: Pedestrian perspective from Parliament – Zeidler Architecture in association with David Chipperfield Architects How do you find a common thread that can connect an eclectic collection of buildings, visually as well as physically, all located within a one-block site, located just across from Canada’s Parliament building in Ottawa. To identify this common thread that could tie everything together, the client turned to a design competition for answers. With the aid of consultants, [phase eins] from Berlin and experts from Canada’s’ own Université de Montréal’s School of Architecture, the client turned to an invited international format to finally settle on six teams that could rethink the site. Read more… Vilnius Railway Station and Public Square Competition  Vilnius Station competition Image: ©Zaha Hadid Architects In European cities, recent history has seen their central railway stations become the subject of upgrades, or totally new projects, many of them springing up in Eastern Europe. In most cases, the focus on this phenomena occurred several decades after earth-shaking political events. In Germany it was the construction of a new main central station (Hauptbahnhof) shortly after the reunification of Germany and Berlin. in Estonia, and now Lithuania, it has occurred after the independence of those countries in conjunction with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And in Hungary, it was the subject of a recent competition encompassing a large area surrounding the station. Read More… |