If you are flying either into or departing from Taiwan after the year 2020, you may wish to arrange your flight so that you either arrive or leave in the evening, as it could well be an unforgettable experience. The winning design by Rogers Stirk Harbour of London for the new Terminal 3 promises an illuminating show that can match that of Curt Fentress’s Denver airport. As an international open competition, and for a project of this magnitude, it was astonishing to find that only four international firms decided to enter this contest. According to one juror, the posting of a $500,000 bond required of serious contenders was probably enough to scare off most firms. This is not to say that the final four lacked expertise in the area. The only firm from Stage 1 not shortlisted, ADPI of Paris, had numerous completed large commissions to its credit. And due to the very extensive experience of the other firms, it could be anticipated that the quality of the entries would be more than adequate. The vision of the Taiwan Airport Authority for the future of the facility was ambitious: “The objectives of Taiwan Taoyuan Internation Airport are to become a large-scale hub airport, serving the aviation market in East Asia. The Multi-Funtional Buildings will link Terminal 3 an existing Terminal 2 to for a Mega-Terminal. The main design concepts for this project are ‘Smart, Green and Culture.’ With a high efficient operating system to provide high quality passenger services and transportation functions, the project will be developed as a sustainable and intelligent airport, with comprehensive facilities encompassing functions in tourism, shopping, culture and arts to create new traveling experiences.” Finally, the client was looking for three essentials: • Accommodate growth • Improve Service Levels • To maintain and strengthen the competitive position of the airport and to develop at the airport the commercial and cultural centre of the Aerotropolis. To adjudicate the selection process, the following jury was empaneled: • Chu-Joe Hsia, MArch, Ph.D, Jury Chair (Taiwan), Architect • Marcos Cruz, MArch, Ph.D, (U.K.), Architect • Jerry Dann (Taiwan), Senior VP, Taoyuan International Airport • Kwang-Yu King (Taiwan), Architect • Erik Kriel (South Africa), Airport Engineer • Shannon Hsien-Heng Lee (Taiwan), Civil Engineer
During this final phase. the group was led by Richard Rogers, he himself of course, an excellent airport architect. He leads an amazing consulting company, as well as an airport management company. Also, Taiwan’s own consulting company and airport management company formed part of this group. They had cutting edge innovation and they were capable of presenting buildable ideas. Not only did they challenge the consultant’s architectural structure manual, they focused on arrival and departure floor plans. They let the travelers have the opportunity to see each other. Then, they came up with the whole environmental issue. Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s three phases of construction were combined together. Also, when it was in the second phase, they challenged their team’s structural ideas from phase one. They completely abandoned the flat roof idea. During the last two months of this phase, they developed a completely different exterior design with curved lines, not only to prevent water leaking and provide a good drainage system, but also to offer an excellent lighting design through the curves of the roof. The interior design combined ten thousand “flowers,” which adjust the perspective of the viewer according to inside activities—the experience of the users—to form the up and down movement of the angles and spaces. I feel this design is very moving and touching. The international advancement is just the beginning. Addressing Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s three-stage phasing depends on the government’s strong determination and will—to make it a reality! Thank you! -Translation by Winnie Tomeny
Winner CECI Engineering Consultants, Taiwan with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, London OveArup and Partners, Hong Kong Fei & Cheng Associates, Taiwan
Finalist Van Berkel en Bos U.N. Studio, Rotterdam April Yang Design Studio, Ltd. , Los Angeles Bio-Architecture Formosana Taiwan Taiwan Engineering Consultants-Group, Taiwan
Finalist Foster + Partners Limited, London Ricky Liu & Associates, Taiwan MAA Group Consulting Engineers, Taiwan
In July 2019 the Vilnius Concert Hall competition jury began its deliberations to identify a suitable design for this major performing arts project. As one might have anticipated, two of thejurors on the seven member panel, Ole Gustavsen (Snohetta) and Andreas Cukrowicz (Nachbaur Architekten) had won high profile competitions for similar music center projects—in Oslo and Munich.The jury was confronted with a formidable task, as the competition, organized according to UIA regulations and anonymous in its format, had attracted 248 entries from around the world. For this one-stage competition, the organizers listed the following evaluation criteria, whereby the order of the criteria was not to reflect any priority:
Form and Dichroic Light Scott Hall at Carnegie Mellon University Michelle LaFoe and Isaac Campbell OFFICE 52 Architecture Forward by Cesar Pelli, FAIA Introduction by Michael J. Crosbie, FAIA Leete”s Island Books, Maine USA Hard cover; 96 pages in color ISBN 9780918172709
In his introduction to Form and Dichroic LIght, Michael Crosbie never mentions the term, “wild card,” to describe Office 52’s participation in the invited competition for the Carnegie Mellon Engineering Building. The four finalists, picked from a list of 17 firms, also included three household names: ZGF, Wilson, and BCJ (Bohlin Cywinski, Jackson). So what possible chance could a firm, which had just recently opened a small office in Portland, Oregon, have against a competition lineup of this magnitude? But as OFFICE 52 Principal, Isaac Campbell explained, as a small firm, “we were quite nimble,” and the $50,000 stipend the firms all received to produce a design could allow OFFICE 52 more time to undertake the research involved than might be the case with a larger office, where a cost controller is constantly focusing on the operation.
Memorials to commemorate atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II have taken many forms. Holocaust museums such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. by Pei Cobb Freed or the Jewish Museum in Berlin by Daniel Libeskind, all endeavor to paint a broad picture, including narratives covering most of the major events and sites. Former concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Dachau, Theresienstadt and Buchenwald have been frequent tour destinations. In the case of Buchenwald, the local city of Weimar has placed pictures of “Witnesses” throughout the downtown area as a reminder of the Nazi legacy.
Detroit’s Dia Plaza competition is hardly unique in initiating a search for urbanistic solutions to a cultural cluster. Vienna, Berlin, Mesa, Fort Worth, Chicago’s Millennium Park and Paris’ Parc de la Villette are just a few examples of projects where the focus on spaces between buildings, and arriving at a connective plan to infuse new energy into the site, has been the primary goal of other projects. All of these have been faced with their own challenges: solutions for some have been relatively simple—Vienna’s Museum Quarter and Berlin’s Forum—while others such as Paris’ La Villette and Mesa’s Downtown Plaza represent a more challenging subject spatially. In the case of Detroit, the aim of the competition was clear: “The design competition centers around enhancing and enlivening the DIA’s exterior campus and aims to connect all the institutions with a beautiful series of settings that support all types of programming and public art.”
Milton Keynes, known simply as MK, represented one of the more significant results of the UK’s “new town” programs from the 1950s and 60s. Situated almost equidistant between Oxford and Cambridge, and within easy access from London, the city had everything one might expect from a modern community—except a university. For a city having a population exceeding 250,000, and projected to have 500,000 inhabitants by 2050, that will all change, as a competition supported by the MK Council (MKC) and Cranfield University has resulted in five firms competing for the opportunity to design a higher educational institution to eventually accommodate 15,000 students.
If cities in the U.S. are anticipating funding from government entities to solve a dire need for affordable housing, they should be prepared for a long wait. The national government, a traditional source of funds for such projects, has shown little if no interest in the issue, and state and local sources are at a minimum. To exacerbate the problem, the construction cost of affordable housing has risen exponentially the the past few decades. Gone are those days when architects such as Oakland-based Michael Pyatok could build affordable housing for $100 a square foot.
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