Sponsor: The Capital City of Prague Location: Prague, Czech Republic Type: Open, international Language: The competition brief is in both Czech and English, but will be held in Czech only. Eligibility: Open to all professional teams Fee: None Awards: 1st prize 1,000,000 CZK (US $41,161) 2nd prize 600,000 CZK (US $24,696) 3rd prize 350,000 CZK (US $14,406) Honourable mentions: 50,000 CZK (US $2,058) Timetable: 25 July 2017 – Registration & submission deadline
Description:
The river is a landscape feature that makes a major contribution to the appearance and character of the city of Prague, while also forming a natural barrier between the two parts of the city lying on opposite banks. Karlín and Holešovice are important city districts that lack good connections between them, especially for pedestrians and cyclists. The new footbridge is intended to create this connection and, from a citywide perspective, to contribute to making the cycle route along the Žižkov–Karlín–Holešovice–Troja axis more compact.
The new footbridge will also be important in opening up access to the Štvanice island, making it a major recreational centre. Štvanice can be accessed by cars via the Hlávkův bridge but this route is not ideal for pedestrians and is a long way for residents of Karlín and Holešovice to walk. Both banks are now connected to the island by ferry.
The idea of building a footbridge over Štvanice has long been a part of the land use plan. An architectural competition was held in 1999 to de ne the appearance of the footbridge. However, a er the oods in 2002, ood protection measures were reinforced. The reason for holding a new competition is primarily that the technical and legislative requirements have changed and the situation on both riverbanks and Štvanice island have deteriorated due to the lack of a footbridge.
The new footbridge would provide convenient and easy access. The most important restrictions on the design are requirements relating to ood protection, water ow and waterway management, the nature of the urban situation on both banks and requirements for wheelchair access to the footbridge.
The footbridge will be located near urban heritage sites – Dejvice, Bubny, upper Holešovice and Karlín – and in the Prague Conservation Area. It will impinge on notable vistas along the Vltava river and run through a regional bio- corridor on the Štvanice island. The design of a new footbridge should therefore emphasise respect for the environment and a minimal impact on the landscape.
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.”
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.
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.
The Rails to Trails program, which gained momentum after the1984 Federal Land Banking Law—supported by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy—has seen over 24,000 miles of trails established where rail lines once existed. Some sites were strictly urban, while others, sometimes over 100 miles in length, were primarily rural, while others combined some of both.
The reunification of Germany in 1989 not only had a great impact on the lives of many Germans, especially those living in the former DDR,but together with the decision to move the nation’s capital from Bonn to Berlin resulted in two major international design competitions in 1992: the first was to convert the existing Reichstag building into a home for the German parliament, the second being the Spreebogen planning competition, which included a chancellery for the head of state as well as needed buildings nearby for the Federal government.
IMPORTANT NOTICE : Unless otherwise indicated, photographs of buildings and
projects are from professional or institutional archives. All reproduction is prohibited
unless authorized by the architects, designers, office managers, consortia or archives
centers concerned. The Competition Project, Inc. is not held responsible for any
omissions or inaccuracies, but appreciate all comments and pertinent information that
will permit necessary modifications during future updates.
