UIA – HYP Cup 2018 International Student Competition in Architectural DesignSponsor: UIA Type: International, student Eligibility: Open to all architecture and relevant major students around the globe. Full-time on-campus architecture students from accredited institutions (including master and PhD candidates and graduate students of 2018) can participate alone or as a team with team members of no more than four people and advisors of no more than two. Awards: 1st Prize (1 team) – Certificate and 100,000 RMB (approx.15, 000 USD) (before tax); 2nd Prize (3 teams) – Certificate and 30,000 RMB (approx.5, 000 USD) (before tax); 3rd Prize (8 teams) – Certificate and 10,000 RMB (approx. 1, 700 USD) (before tax); Honorable Mentions (several teams) – Certificate and 6-month free subscription of UED magazine; Advisors of prize-winning projects will also be awarded with certificates; Prize winners will have an opportunity to intern at prestigious architectural firms through the “Learning Design with Master Architects” program. Timeline: 20 September 2018 – Submission Deadline 2018 Competition Topic: Urban Co-living: Customizing Modules for Community Premises and ambitions: China’s economy is shifting from the primacy of manufacturing to the primacy of a knowledge- and research-based service sector. This shift aligns with a global trend, namely the global socio- economic transformation from a society based on mechanical mass production to a society based on digital customization. This implies a city based on R&D, marketing and finance, requiring continuous networking and face to face communication. The city becomes the social super-brain. This also implies the congregation of knowledge hungry, entrepreneurial young professionals in central locations. Everybody comes with an insatiable need to network, to learn continuously, and potentially to team up in various entrepreneurial ventures. The idea of co-living caters for this new social need and desire. Co-living offers a real opportunity to make good on all the talk about residential community which must remain a dead letter in housing projects where a random collection of residents live parallel lives. Co-living can create community, which depends on curated compatibility of the residents together with real spatial sharing. Design task: The task is to identify a central urban site in one of China’s 1st or 2nd tier cities and propose a co-living cluster with about 1000 small units. The units can be minimal, i.e. about 12 sqm for singles and about 16 sqm for couples. These units should be designed as prefabricated modules. However, these modules should be designed as parametric system that allows for customization. Endless repetition of identical units is to be avoided. Various species of units need to be invented, varied, and perhaps hybridized. The next aspect to be considered are the aggregation patterns that these modules allow for. The varied patters of voids and inbetween spaces should make space for social communication. The small individual units are to be augmented with a lot of shared facilities that more than compensate for the spatial constraints of the individual units: kitchens, eating areas, lounging/living areas, café/bar areas, co-working areas etc. Together with the voids these shared spaces deliver the communicative tissue that motivates the residents to choose this development in the first place. Co-organizer: School of Architecture, Tsinghua University; College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University; School of Architecture, South China University of Technology; School of Architecture, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology; Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Chongqing University; School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology For more information, go to: http://hypcup.uedmagazine.net/?r=site&en=1 |
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/  Aerial view of site – Courtesy National Finnish Museum When major cultural institutions in Finland plan a new building project, one can almost always assume that an open competition will be the vehicle by which the client settles on the building’s design. The only question is, will this be organized in a format open to local, Scandinavian, or international architects. In the case of the National Museum of Finland annex competition, it was open to architects throughout the world — resulting in 185 entries. Read more…
The Opening of Taichung’s Central Park by Catherine Mosbach/Philippe Rahm
 View from the south with downtown Taichung in the distance image: ©Mosbach/Rahm
The abandonment and closing of airports, including decommissioning those that were used for military purposes, has presented design communities with several opportunities to convert them entirely to civilian purposes. Notable among those which have been the result of competitions are Orange County Great Park, Irvine, California (Ken Smith Landscape Architects), The Estonian National Museum (Dan Dorell, Lina Ghotmeh and Tsuyoshi Tane), and Toronto’s less successful Downsview Park competition, whereby the winning design by OMA, with trees as the primary feature, has been basically ignored. Instead, the area has become the site of numerous commercial and residential projects.
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SMAR’s Winning Entry Gets the Green Light  Image: ©SMAR Architecture The winning competition entry in the 2016 Science Island competition in Kaunas, Lithuania by SMAR Architects may only take five years to realize—from the date of the competition to completion. This is encouraging news, as the duration of such projects resulting from a competition can often take much longer—sometimes up to 8-10 years. Read more…  Night view of the memorial tapestry from Independence Avenue, with Gehry’s sketch of the Normandy cliffs. Explaining the contributions of a World War II hero and later President of the United States on a very modest site on Independence Avenue just off the Washington Mall is tantamount to asking an author to describe the life of this person in no more than one paragraph. But on September 17th, after a long and bumpy journey, lasting almost 20 years and navigating a warren of the DC approval processes and public scrutiny, the Eisenhower Memorial finally was dedicated and opened to the public. Designed by Frank Gehry, it has received mixed reviews, the majority being more positive. But most have pointed out that the memorial is more impressive at night than in full daylight. This is due primarily to the illumination of an almost block-long metallic tapestry—featuring a sketch by Gehry, which depicts his interpretation of the cliffs of the Normandy coastline where the Americans landed on D-Day. Read more…  Professional winner: Brooklyn Bridge Forest (image © Pilot Projects Design Collective) While looking for new adventures on a visit to New York City, friends suggested that I take time to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge—certainly a New York icon. For those intending to undertake this trek across the bridge for the first time, the bridge consists of layers, with a large platform for pedestrians on top of a lower level for cars and the metro system. Traversing this connection for the first time between Manhattan and Brooklyn is not just about getting from one place to another, but experiencing a great scenic view of both boroughs and occasionally interacting with other bridge crossers. As for the latter, they provide a flavor of the city’s demographics, as opposed to similar experiences one might have of the city’s inhabitants when riding the city’s subway system. Read more… |