Competition sponsor: UC Berkeley Prize Essay Competition and Community service Fellowship Competition
Competition type: essay
General competition goals:
Through distinct competitions – the perennial Essay Competition and various Fellowship Competitions – the international Berkeley Prize competition encourages undergraduate architecture students worldwide to go into their communities for the purpose of thinking and writing about issues central to the understanding of the social art of ... Read more...
A Flawed Plan Leads to Budget Issues
Competition rendering of project looking south to Mies museum ©Herzog de Meuron
Once considered in the forefront of modern architecture in post-WWII Europe, Berlin has had its share of questionable decisions concerning important urban projects in recent history. Beginning with the rebirth of the Berlin Palace (Humboldt Forum) on the ... Read more...
The Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Competition
Urban Confluence Silicon Valley winner: ©SMAR Architecture Studio
After several stops and starts over an extended period of time, the winner of the Urban Confluence Design Competition was named in early March, 2021. SMAR Architecture Studio’s The Breeze of Innovation, which prevailed over two other shortlisted finalists from the original 963 ... Read more...
Image: ©KPMB Architects
Not to be outdone by other Canadian provincial capitals, Halifax has chosen to make its own ambitious museum statement on the city’s waterfront. New museums in Vancouver, BC, Calgary and Fredericton, New Brunswick, the latter two by KPMB Architects, are either in development or already under construction. Saskatoon’s Remai Modern by KPMB and ... Read more...
Image ©Francesco Allaixand Julio Orduña
Recently we are beginning to see a resurgence of wood as a primary building material, not only for detached residential housing, but also for multi-family and commercial urban structures. Masonry, steel, and composite materials are still the bread and butter of the construction industry; but wood may be making serious inroads ... Read more...University Clinic, Würzburg, Germany – Neurology / Women’s and Family Clinic
Sponsor: Freistaat Bayern (Staatliches Bauamt Würzburg)
Administration: , Berlin
Type: open, RfQ, limited, anonymous
Number of participants in Phase 1: 20
Number of participants in Phase 2: 5-10
Eligibility: Architects residing in countries belonging to EU or WTO
Language: German
Timetable:
28 January 2021 – RfQ deadline submissions
March-May 2021 – Phase 1 ... Read more...
Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Competition
Aerial view ©Snøhetta
Until now, the establishment of presidential libraries at the conclusion of their terms has followed the founding of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library after World War II. The first exception to this was the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, established in 1962.* Now a foundation has been established in North ... Read more...
The Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Competition
Image ©SMAR Architecture
After several stops and starts, a decision to name the winner of the Urban Confluence Design Competition appears to be nearing its conclusion. In 2017, three founders of a local non-profit established The San Jose Light Tower Corporation (SJLTC). The founders of the non-profit, Restauranteur Steve Borkenhagen, construction ... Read more...
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, ... Read more...
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.
The Taichung Gateway Park Competition (now Taichung Central Park), won by Catherine Mosbach and Philippe Rahm with Ricky Liu and Associates, has been completed after a two-stage international competition and an intensive development phase. Also the site of a previous city airport, this was an ambitious project, covering a 168-acre parcel of land. The original competition participants were faced with a large, comprehensive program, not only incorporating a number of significant features, but doing so sustainably. When we reported on the results of that competition in 2012, author Dan Madryga summed up the challenge presented to the designers as follows:
Serving as the central backbone of the new community, Gateway Park will help set the standard for Gateway City’s subsequent development. The open, two-stage competition challenged architects, planners, and landscape architects to develop a meandering 168-acre parcel of land into a functionally complex recreational park running north to south through the new city, linking its various functional zones. The competition organizers sought a park that combined “tranquility, ecology, landscaping, disaster mitigation, carbon reduction and recreation.” Various recreational and cultural facilities had to be skillfully integrated into the park’s fabric, including a Cultural Center, Movie City, and the aforementioned Taiwan Tower. With a preliminary construction budget set at approximately US$85,000,000, the park is certainly a large-scale, high stakes endeavor with great potential.*
Middle leisure land Image with pavilion: ©Mosbach/Rahm
In the meantime the development phase saw the Mosbach/Rahm team settle on an interesting idea, placing structures along the breath of the site, representing “senses” according to the Rudolph Steiner method. For some, this may hark back to Bernard Tschumi’s “follies”, which were an essential element of his winning design for Parc de la Villette in Paris. In this case, it can be seen in its value not only for its educational/discovery features, but rather as a visual site-integration strategy with thematic connecting links.
The park is to be dedicated on December 6th in Taichung. With its multiple attractions, it promises to be a most important addition to the life and the well-being of the residents of the city and beyond.
*For the original competition Mosbach/Rahm entry: https://competitions.org/2012/01/taichung-gateway-park/
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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/
Winning entry ©Herzog de Meuron
In visiting any museum, one might wonder what important works of art are out of view in storage, possibly not considered high profile enough to see the light of day? In Korea, an answer to this question is in the making.
It can come as no surprise that museums are running out of storage space. This is not just the case with long established “western” museums, but elsewhere throughout the world as well. In Seoul, South Korea, such an issue has been addressed by planning for a new kind of storage facility, the Seouipul Open Storage Museum. The new institution will house artworks and artifacts of three major museums in Seoul: the Seoul Museum of Modern Art, the Seoul Museum of History, and the Seoul Museum of Craft Art.
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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.
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Alster Swimming Pool after restoration (2023)
Linking Two Competitions with Three Modernist Projects
Hardly a week goes by without the news of another architectural icon being threatened with demolition. A modernist swimming pool in Hamburg, Germany belonged in this category, even though the concrete shell roof had been placed under landmark status. When the possibility of being replaced by a high-rise building, it came to the notice of architects at von Gerkan Marg Partners (gmp), who in collaboration with schlaich bergermann partner (sbp), developed a feasibility study that became the basis for the decision to retain and refurbish the building.
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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).
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