Runway for Your Imagination Sponsor/organizer: Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore (URA)
Type: open, ideas (two categories)
Language: English
Fees: None
Timetable:
27 March 2020 – Submission deadline
Awards:
Open category
1st$5,000
2nd4,000
3rd3,000 Tertiary (student) category
1st$3,000
2nd2,000
3rd1,000 Design Challenge:
The site was Singapore’s second international airport from 1955 to 1981 and is currently used as a military airbase. The place holds many rich memories as a nation, being the birthplace of Singapore’s national carrier, Singapore Airlines, in 1971. It also hosted the historic supersonic Concorde between 1977 to 1980 when it was jointly operated by Singapore Airlines and British Airways. Many of the former airport buildings such as the passenger terminal buildings, control tower and aircraft hangars remain today, but have been re-purposed for other uses. The most distinctive feature of the airbase is the 3.8 km long runway. With the relocation of Paya Lebar Airbase from the 2030s onwards, the airbase and its surrounding industrial areas can progressively be transformed into a highly liveable and sustainable new town, built on its unique heritage as a former airport and airbase. The possibilities are immense, and we would like to hear how you envision this place to be in future, including ideas on how some of the former airport buildings and parts of the runway can be repurposed to celebrate the area’s rich aviation heritage. A selection of the ideas received will be exhibited for public viewing, and useful ideas and concepts from the competition will be distilled into design principles and used for the development of a planning brief for the future master planning of the area. - Topic 1: “Concept Master Plan”
Participants are to come up with a broad concept master plan and ideas for the redevelopment of the airbase and the surrounding industrial area. As an indicative guide, the study area is comparable to Tampines estate which has about 300,000 residents. The concept master plan should illustrate the vision of what the community of the future can be like in the next 20 – 30 years, with residents living in a highly liveable and sustainable town. The plan should include ideas for exciting new ways to live, work, play, learn and move. It should also include ideas on how the future Paya Lebar Town can develop its own distinct identity and unique sense of place anchored on its rich heritage and history. - Topic 2: “Transforming the Runway”
The runway is a distinctive feature in the landscape, at about 75m wide and 3.8km long, and orientated along Singapore’s prevailing North-East and South-West wind directions. In order to commemorate the aviation heritage of the future new town, parts of the runway can be retained and transformed into a new public space for everyone to enjoy. Participants are to develop concept proposals for the use of significant stretches of the runway as a multi-functional community space for people of all ages and abilities. The ideas should illustrate the programming of activities along the runway and how these relate to possible developments next to the runway. Design strategies to transform the re-purposed space into a significant landmark while retaining the memory of it as a former runway that served the airport should be included. - Topic 3: “Rejuvenating Paya Lebar Airport”
Participants are to develop concept proposals for the cluster of former airport buildings comprising the terminal building, control tower offices and hangers. These buildings are distinguished by their distinctive identity and architecture related to their former airport functions. Participants can propose a precinct master plan and design strategies for the re-purposing of the former airport buildings and structures to give them a new lease of life. Proposals can include the injection of new buildings and public spaces that integrate with the retained buildings to create a unique precinct identity within the future town.
Competition website:
https://www.ideas.gov.sg/public/Runway_for_Your_Imagination |
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/
Jensen Architects – Winning entry (Honor Award) Beginning in 2011, Architecture at Zero, a collaboration between the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the California chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIACA), was established to investigate the role architecture might play in reducing energy consumption in the built environment. Since then, every year has seen a new site and building type selected as a design challenge in what has become one of the world’s most interesting international competitions.
As a sign of its mounting popularity, the competition received 237 registrations from 49 countries and, according to the professional adviser, about 150 entries— all this during the Covid-19 virus pandemic, when all were compelled to work from home. Read more… An Ideas Competition in Opposition to a Concrete Design
Entry by TheeAe (Image © TheeAe)
In early 2020, a group advocating a new approach to the design of the Los Angeles Museum of Art (LACMA)—The Citizens’ Brigade to Save LACMA—organized a competition to counter an existing design by the Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor. Already commissioned by the LACMA administration, the project is slated to begin almost immediately with the demolition of four LACMA buildings—three existing and one new. Moreover, the existing plan to incorporate all of the existing collections under one roof isn’t covered by the Zumthor plan. This obvious lack of exhibit space was the focus of a query by the Ahmanson Foundation, a major donor of artworks to LACMA in the past. Upon not receiving assurances from LACMA that those donated works would be exhibited, but possibly held in storage and hidden from public view, the Foundation cut all ties with LACMA. Finally, the plan by Zumthor foresees the new structure not only occupying much of the new space created by demolition, but extends part of the new building over Wiltshire Boulevard. As one might anticipate from Zumthor, the construction of the structure is also primarily of concrete, thereby raising the cost per SF. So no matter how highly finished this material turns out to be, it does in essence represent a brutalist structure replacing an eclectic ensemble. Read more… National Railway Museum Central Hall (U.K.)
Winning entry by Feilden Fowles (image © Fielden Fowles)
If one were to search for a railway museum in the U.K., London would seem to be an obvious choice. But, as it happens, its location is in the northeastern city of York, far from the major cultural and economic centers of the country. But despite its distance from the major metropolitan areas to the south and west, York has managed to become the focal point of research into the history of rail in the U.K., supplemented by a major museum. Here we are not just talking about some posters, but sheds replete with a large collection of vintage trains. Read more…
View to winning entry ©KDA
Foundation non-profits are no strangers to good architecture. Ford Foundation’s forward-looking headquarters in New York City by Roche Dinkeloo was an early example of a non-profit using architecture as a vehicle for serving to brand it as a progressive institution. In 2001 the California Endowment went one step further, staging an invited competition for their new headquarters in Los Angeles. Read more… 
Winning entry by Cui Kai (© Cui Kai)
Master plans have been around for ages; but master plans for very large cities with all their support systems are relatively new. Milton Keynes (MK), located in Buckinghamshire in southern England, and begun in the late 1960s, is one of the most successful of the new cities, now having a population of almost 250,000. Its success lies mainly on the lessons learned from the establishment of the planning which generated the new towns in the U.K. during the 1940s and 50s, many of which have not fared well in the test of time. MK’s success was based primarily on the careful separation of high density from residential where the influence of the “garden city” could be seen. Here the idea of a live/work environment was even incorporated. Read more… |
