Kazan’s New Garden City CompetitionAn “eco-district” Master Plan 
Winning plan by Knight Frank (all images courtesy centeragency.org) Moscow has been short on housing for decades. Now the need for housing in the far-flung reaches of the Russian Federation is taking shape. Kazan, a city east of Moscow on the upper reaches of the Volga River in the Republic of Tartarstan, has just announced the winners of a competition for a completely new suburban plan. Although such a competition might not appear as anything new to western countries, where new towns were built in England and elsewhere, and especially in China, where new towns are sprouting up on a regular basis, this represents a new way to approach urban planning in the Russian Federation. According to Kazan’s mayor, Ilsur Metshin, “The competition featured the world’s best architectural and design players, who fought for the right to reach the final. This has enriched us all – we really did see completely new approaches to design, or at least unusual for Russia. This is a large territory, and there is enough of everything: both land, and scale, as well as the desire to see the eco-district of tomorrow.” The competition was open to international participants, and drew 47 entries from a number of countries outside Russia. Three finalists, each receiving 2 million rubles for their work, were selected to present their designs to a Russian jury. After reviewing presentations of all the concepts, including the functional programming strategy, the architectural and urban planning concept, the framework financial and economic model for implementing the concept until 2030, and a preliminary design of the territory for the initial implementation stage, the jury discussed the projects submitted and determined the winner by vote. The winner was the Anglo-French-Russian consortium led by international consulting company Knight Frank (Russia, UK), which included XTU Architects (France), OXO Architects (France), John Thompson & Partners/JTP (England), Architectural Landing Force (Russia, Republic of Tatarstan), and TERRA SCAPE (Belgium). Their team presented the “Ecopolis ‘Two forests’” project, featuring the infiltration of green fingers in the future eco-district. “The concept involves the formation of active clusters with dense buildings, where life will be in full swing, a “clearing” with less dense buildings, and local public spaces with playgrounds and meeting places. There will be clusters, and groups of clearings, and the ‘fingers’ are united by a long park in the region and a large green ring. The park threads sub-centers at the intersection with the roads, where children’s sports and event zones and cafes will be located, as well as a square with the main cultural center. Thus, the three elements are active clusters, the green ring and the district park, forming the basis for the successful development of the eco-district. As a result, the existing ecosystem, biodiversity and high quality of the environment are prioritized at the highest level.  
 
 
 
First place images © Knight Frank (all images courtesy centeragency.org)
All three of the finalists adopted different strategies for the site. Second place was taken by the Russian-British consortium led by ASADOV and partners (Russia), who presented the “Life on the border with nature” project. The basis of the concept is a balance between the conservation of the natural potential of the territory, architectural solutions and the investment attractiveness of the project, and continuous forest corridors with a total area of more than 60 hectares located within walking distance from all residents of the region were the key planning element of the territory.  
 
 
Second place images © ASADOV & partners (all images courtesy centeragency.org)
The Third place winner was a Russian-Dutch consortium, led by Buromoscow (Russia). In their Arakchino Urban Park project, it was proposed to divide the territory into 2 parts – a public park with medium-rise residential buildings and an individual development area, and 5 forest sites with private residential buildings.      
Third place images © Buromoscow (all images courtesy centeragency.org)
As a result of this experiment, Russians will be living in an environment quite unlike anything they have been used to until now: a somewhat higher density version of the Garden City. |
San Jose’s Urban Confluence Winner Cancelled 
This week we received the news that the winning design for San Jose’s Urban Confluence competition by SMAR Architecture Studio has been cancelled. This comes after the original competition site was abandoned in favor of one more centrally located in downtown San Jose, Plaza de César Chávez. We can only assume that even this wasn’t enough to generate enough interest from major donors. From the very beginning of the competition, it appeared that the enthusiasm of those sponsoring the competition might be lacking links to potential donors with deep pockets—the hi-tech firms in Silicon Valley. After the competition resulted in a design that certainly entailed a major budget, the project had to be in trouble. The competition did produce a remarkable design; but this turned out to be another case where a competition, intended to generate enough public interest to fund a major project, came up short. -Ed “A Museum for All” 
Winning entry by Weiss/Manfredi Landscape Architecture and Urbanism
Background
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s slogan “Creating a Museum for All” certainly reflects the efforts of many art museums to counter the notion that art museums exist primarily to cater to an elitist few. But one should note that this competition for an expansion of the museum’s capacity to serve a wider audience saw an initial step in this direction with the 1999 competition resulting in the Steven Holl addition, a series of pavilions stretching down one side of the large lawn area..
Read more… Preparation and Organization of Design Competitions 
[phase 1] Benjamin Hossbach / Christian Lehmhaus / Christine Eichelmann
210 × 230 mm, 192 pp.
over 600 images
softcover
ISBN 978-3-86922-316-2 (English)
ISBN 978-3-86922-240-0 (German)
Dom Publishers
€48 in EU (For price abroad, see below)
Founded in 1998 in Berlin, Phase 1 has been a principal player in the organization and facilitation of design competitions, not only in Germany, but abroad as well. The accomplishments of the firm have been well documented in three volumes—The Architecture of Competitions—beginning in 2i006. Whereas these books mainly focused on the results of the competitions they have administered, the present work, Fundamentals of Competition Management, takes one from the very beginnings of the competition process to its conclusion. The authors envisioned the publication as “three three books in one: one „blue book“ with example projects, one „yellow book“ with statements and the „white book“ with the actual guideline to competition management.”
Although there have been a number of handbooks covering the administration of designcompetitions a study covering the entire process in such detail is a welcome addition to the the literature in this field. As a contribution to this important democratic process that has yielded exceptional design for decades, this volume is not only valid for Europe, but a current overview of the process for those globally who wish to raise the level of design by virtue of a design competition. -Ed Foreign institutions wishing to obtain a copy of the book will recieve a discount to cover the cost of foreign shipping.
To obtain a copy for that offer, go to: [email protected] Since the recent realization of SMAR Architecture’s winning design we have now received images from a professional photo shoot. As an open competition for one of the more important projects in Europe at the time, we feel that full documentation of the process from start to finish was an important page in the history of architecture in the early 21st century. Documentation by us during the 2017 competition, with images from all finalists from the 144 entries is available at: https://competitions.org/2020/11/science-island-design-competition-finalists/ 
See more images… 
Completed IMEX by Tuck Hinton Architects. Photo courtesy Anecdote
It is not often that we look back to a competition that occurred three decades ago that was also covered in detail by COMPETITIONS (Vol. 4, #4; pp. 14-27). What made the Chattanooga IMAX different back in 1994 was that the article covering that competition was authored by Prof. Marleen Davis, then Dean of the University of Tennessee’s School of Architecture and a member of the jury panel. This was not just a short article, covering the high points of the competition with a few talking points about the winning design. This 4,000+ word document also described in detail the jury’s observations about all the finalists, including the honorable mentions—one of the few times we have gained such a detailed glimpse in this country from the inside of the competition process. Read more… 
Winning entry by Luca Poian Forms Image ©Filippo Bolognese images
Good design seldom happens in a vacuum. And so it was with an international competition for a new mosque in Preston, U.K. A mid-sized city of 95,000, and located in Lancashire near the west coast and almost equally distant from London and Glasgow, Preston has a storied past, going all the way back to the Romans and the late Middle Ages, where it was the site of significant battles. During the Industrial Revolution, the city prospered, and it was not until after World War II that Preston experienced the British version of the U.S. Rust Belt. In the meantime, the city has experienced an upswing in economic activity, with an unemployment rate of only 3%. Aside from the appearance of new industries, the city has benefitted from the establishment of Central Lancashire University (CLU), which employs over 3,000 faculty and staff, and, as such, is one of the regions major employers. Any new university requires new facilities, and one of the most outstanding examples of this at CLU was the new Student Centre and Plaza, a result of a 2016 RIBA-sponsored competition won by Hawkins/Brown
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 Changdong Station winner – image ©D & B Partners Architects
Whereas international competitions for real projects have become a rarity lately, Korea is a welcome exception. Among the plethora of competition announcements we receive almost weekly, several have ended with foreign firms as winners. But the history of welcoming international participants does go back several years. One notable early example was the Incheon Airport competition, won by Fentress Bradburn Architects (1962-70).
Among the more recent successes of foreign firms was the Busan Opera House competition, won by Snøhetta (2013-) and the Sejong Museum Gardens competition, won by Office OU, Toronto (2016-2023).
Read more… 
1st Place: Zaha Hadid Architects – night view from river – Render by Negativ
Arriving to board a ferry boat or cruise ship used to be a rather mundane experience. If you had luggage, you might be able to drop it off upon boarding, assuming that the boarding operation was sophisticated enough. In any case, the arrival experience was nothing to look forward to. I recall boarding the SS United States for a trip to Europe in the late 1950s. Arriving at the pier in New York, the only thought any traveler had was to board that ocean liner as soon as possible, find one’s cabin, and start exploring. If you were in New York City and arriving early, a nearby restaurant or cafe would be your best bet while passing time before boarding. Read more… |
