The Future Park Design Ideas Competition: New Public Space for Melbourne
Sponsors: University of Melbourne, in partnership with Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA)
Type: Open, international, ideas
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Eligibility: This competition seeks to enhance the role of landscape architecture and the public realm in Australian cities. However, the competition does not restrict entry to registered landscape architects or those studying within landscape architecture programs. Instead the competition aims to inspire an open and dynamic dialogue between built environment disciplines, the broader community, government and the private sector.
This single stage competition is open to established and emerging designers (tertiary students) of the built and natural environment disciplines (i.e. landscape architecture, architecture, urban design, environmental planning and ecology, environmental engineering).
Victorian high school students studying art, design, environmental studies and associated subjects are also encouraged to submit proposals within the student category.
Awards (categories will likely include):
Professional and tertiary (international) – Up to AUD$20,000 to be allocated as prizes
High school (open to Victorian students only) – Work experience at a landscape architecture office (tbc)
Timeline:
22 March 2019 – Official Competition Launch (Melbourne Design Week, Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne)
31 May, 2019 – Entries open
1 August,2019 – Submission Deadline
September 2019 – Shortlisting
Design Challenge:
In 1837 surveyor Hoddle’s plan laid the foundations for the city of Melbourne, transforming the endemic landscape of wetlands, open grasslands and custodial lands of the Kulin nation into a speculative real estate grid surrounded by colonial parkland. Featuring a botanic garden, a Domain, along with other significant garden squares and parks, this generous layer of open space was integral to the development of ‘Marvellous’ Melbourne – a vibrant late nineteenth century city of international prominence.
Fast forward, and Melbourne’s rapid millennium growth has reshaped the city centre and inner suburbs into a dense urbanism, with apartment towers and medium density housing constructed on former industrial sites and lining major transport corridors. Melbourne is now considered the fourth fastest growing city in the OECD, and is expected by 2050 to eclipse Sydney as Australia’s largest city. This population growth and densification raises questions over the capacity of existing parks to meet the needs of the contemporary city.
This idea competition challenges professional and emerging landscape architects, urban designers, architects and planners to speculate on new park possibilities for a future Melbourne. How can parks shape Melbourne’s urban form? Where should this new public open space be located, how should it be configured and what is its role? Is a new signature park in the spirit of Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon Park (2005) or Moscow Zaryadye Park (2018) appropriate, or instead smaller sequences of parks? Should parks be designed at ground level or are other spatial locations possible?
Proposals are asked to address these questions in two ways.
1. Make the Space: Restricted to a 10 km radius of Melbourne’s city centre, designers must present a rationale (speculative or other) for the location and configuration of their proposed public open space/s. Strategies for procuring land such as amalgamation, demolition, repurposing, redefining and re zoning should be considered.
2.Design the Place: What is the role of the park in 2050? Designers must present the aesthetic, civic and ecological attributes of their scheme, and highlight how these attributes respond to the challenges facing Melbourne in the mid twenty first century. Key considerations include climate change, shifting demographics and density of the city, Reconciliation, biodiversity and evolving concepts of publicness and community. For more information, go to: https://msd.unimelb.edu.au/be150/competitions/futurepark
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A Church Ruin as Reconciliation Memorial 
View of winning design from south ©Heninghan Peng Architects
For those tourists visiting Berlin today, the sudden approach to the ruins of a 1895 church building located on the city’s downtown Breitscheidplatz would certainly arouse their curiosity. One of the few remaining relics of World War II in the city, the church has now been the subject of a competition: Redesign and renovation of the Old Tower of the Friedrich Wilhelm Memorial Church (Umgestaltung des Alten Turms der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächnis-Kirche). 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/ Architecture as a Unifying Concept 
1st Place – UNStudio Image: ©Aerial image: ©die developer Projektentwicklung GmbH
As attractive as some of our most famous towers might appear, they do have a serious downside according to some observers: ‘they suck the life out of the street.’ This has not gone unnoticed, as some cities have required setbacks as partial solutions. Two Mies Van Der Rohe projects, New York’s Seagram Building and the Toronto-Dominion Centre are prime examples of this concept. More recently the recognition that landscaping can provide some breathing space has become quite the fashion. Competitions are now replete with competitors who insist that the surrounding green environment does not stop at the front door. One of the most obvious in recent history is Elizabeth de Portzamparc’s competition winning entry for the Taichung Tower 2 competition in Taiwan. Read more… Belfast Looks Toward an Equitable and Sustainable Housing Model 
Birdseye view of Mackie site ©Matthew Lloyd Architects
If one were to look for a theme that is common to most affordable housing models, public access has been based primarily on income, or to be more precise, the very lack of it. Here it is no different, with Belfast’s homeless problem posing a major concern. But the competition also hopes to address another of Belfast’s decades-long issues—its religious divide. There is an underlying assumption here that religion will play no part in a selection process. The competition’s local sponsor was “Take Back the City,” its membership consisting mainly of social advocates. In setting priorities for the housing model, the group interviewed potential future dwellers as well as stakeholders to determine the nature of this model. Among those actions taken was the “photo- mapping of available land in Belfast, which could be used to tackle the housing crisis. Since 2020, (the group) hosted seminars that brought together international experts and homeless people with the goal of finding solutions. Surveys and workshops involving local people, housing associations and council duty-bearers have explored the potential of the Mackie’s site.” This research was the basis for the competition launched in 2022. Read more… 
Perkins & Will
Carrying the label, “Artistic Ideas Competition,” five firms vied for a commission to design a new National Museum of the U.S. Navy. Household names, the five were
Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) Copenhagen/ New York
Gehry Partners (Los Angeles)
DLR Group (Columbus, OH)
Perkins&Will (Chicago) Winner!
Quinn Evans (Ann Arbor) With a site not yet identified, it is possible that a final design will look quite different from the present submission. the Navy has expressed a preference for M Street SE and 6th Street SE, near the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Six Firms Competed to Rethink the Future of a Major Museum 
Aerial view of winning design ©Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos (courtesy Malcolm Reading Consultants)
The history of the Dallas Museum of Art’s expansion has been punctuated by several moves, culminating in a new building designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes in 1984. The importance of this move to a new, somewhat desolate location in the city cannot be underestimated: it has led to the revitalization of what is now called the “Arts District,” with the relocation of various arts institutions to new facilities: the opera house (Foster and Partners), Dee and Charles Wyly Performing Arts Theater (REX/OMA), Nasher Sculpture Center (Renzo Piano), and I.M. Pei’s Meyerson Symphony Center being among the most significant. Read more… |
