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Winning design © Gottlieb Paludan Architects with Strasky, Husty and Partners
The U.K. is no stranger to pedestrian bridge competitions. Both the Salford Pedestrian Bridge competition (2013) and Tintagel Castle Pedestrian Bridge (2014) were commissioned by virtue of a request for qualifications and the shortlisting process. Both were administered by the Royal Institute of British Architects ... Read more...Login to see more
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The Taoyuan Museum of Arts Competition
Courtesy: TMOA ©Joe Shih. Architects + Riken Yamamoto and Field Shop
The competition for the Taoyuan Museum of Arts is similar to now what has become the typical invited format for major projects in Taiwan. In this case, 14 architectural teams submitted their qualifications, and four qualified for the second competition ... Read more...
Southern Branch of the National Central Library and National Repository Library, Taiwan
Image: courtesy Taiwan National Central Library ©BAF
The primary reason for establishing a “Southern Branch” of Taiwan’s National Central Library And National Repository Library was logical: the main National Central Library was running out of space to store an increasingly large quantity of physical ... Read more...
Image courtesy Ministry of Construction and Infrastructure ©Zaha Hadid Architects
Zaha Hadid Architects prevailed over the entries of 47 other firms to win the Sverdlovsk Concert Hall Competition in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Staging this competition in the Urals, in a remote location in European Russia from the centers of power, is testimony that culture can thrive in ... Read more...
The Grand Bayway by Common Ground (image © TLS Landscape Architecture)
Courtesy: Resilient by Design
At a time when sea level rise is threatening coastal communities, California’s San Francisco Bay area, together with Miami and New York, would appear to be the most immediately threatened by this phenomenon. Assuming that levels in the Bay area can rise ... Read more...Login to see more
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Competing for an Arrival Experience and Plan at UCD
Winning design: Image:©Steven Holl Architects and Malcolm Reading Consultants
A designer of hospitals once remarked that a full vacant floor should be added to every new hospital facility to accommodate the rapid changes in the technical demands of the industry. Although on a different scale, the same might now be said of architecture programs at universities, as the addition of everything connected with computer technology—i.e., computer 3D modeling—has led to changes in instruction and curricula in academic architecture programs. Providing empty space in a new building without a true purpose would run into problems with the people controlling the purse strings, as they want to see the justification for every square foot of programmed space. But the recognition of this factor was foremost in the minds of the client and many of the competitors in the Future Campus UCD competition in Dublin. While some left space for future expansion, others revealed less emphasis for flexibility in their approach to the challenge presented by the Center for Creative Design at the campus entrance—and this included the winner.
The emphasis on an arrival feature was clear from the competition brief:
“The brief to competitors was to draw up an urban design vision that foregrounds a highly-visible and welcoming entrance precinct, and create a concept design for a charismatic yet integrated new 8,000 sqm building – the Centre for Creative Design – that expresses the University’s creativity. The Future Campus project is intended to create a stronger physical presence and identity for the University within Dublin, and raise the profile of UCD nationally and internationally.”
The purpose of the competition was to expand and update a rather nondescript area with an arrival feature for campus expansion, with strong emphasis given to site planning. The appearance of an “arrival experience,” both symbolically and spatially, was to provide the campus with an unmistakable landmark to deal with the current “underwhelming experience.” The selection of the six high-profile finalists for this invited competition was also a certain signal that this building was to be anything but traditional in character. Thus, the competitors did not have to consider the possibility of a local jury insisting on “context” as a primary guideline for architectural expression—although context curiously did enter the discussion.
The Interdisciplinary Issue
As has often been the case with the programming of recent academic facilities throughout the world, interdisciplinary contact between different majors was also in the forefront here. Thus we see many of these designs locating architecture and engineering programs on the same floor. An exception here was the winner, who located engineering on the bottom two floors of the building, with architecture on above floors.
Studios for recent architecture programs at numerous universities have been located on one, large level, often at grade—promoting interaction between students at different levels as well as faculty. This includes recent U.S. schools of Architecture, i.e., Florida International University, Ohio State University, Kent State University, University of New Mexico, etc. The logic of making a major arrival statement with a significant building in this case suggests a multi-story building with limited square footage at each level. Thus, many of these competitors could be seen following the high-rise formula—resulting in more fragmentation in the organization of the teaching areas.
Winning design: Image:©Steven Holl Architects and Malcolm Reading Consultants
The competition was organized under the supervision of Malcolm Reading Consultants, London. Ninety plus firms submitted qualifications in the RfQ process, which resulted in the shortlisting of the six finalists. They were:
• Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York
• John Ronan Architects, Chicago
• O’Donnell + Tuomey, Dublin
• Steven Holl Architects, New York
• Studio Libeskind, New York
• UNStudio, Amsterdam
Each finalist team received an honorarium of €40,000 for their competition work, and the international teams were required to team up with a local executive team for the second stage.
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Image: ©wHY Architecture
Earlier this year, an article in the Architects’ Journal described what almost sounded like a death knell for wHY Architecture’s winning competition design for Edinburgh’s Ross Pavilion site. When the competition took place, some observers may have regarded wHY as a wild card, in the company of such high-profile firms as BIG and David Adjaye,* There can be no question that they understood the site and program better than their rivals, and it would have appeared that innovation had won the day. Their design could have served to rethink the way in which this site, with its replacement of an outdated bandstand by a contemporary structure, would serve as a destination for Scotland’s public—much as has been the case for Frank Gehry’s pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium 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/
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 entries, won with a novel tower-like structure consisting primarily of hundreds of rods, generating energy while swaying in the wind.
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SWA/Balsley Wins Paveletskaya Plaza Landscape Competition
Aerial view at night – courtesy SWA/Balsley 5+ Design
Of the nine railway stations in Moscow, Paveletskaya is the largest and one of the last of those that opened around the turn of the century. Compared to other Moscow stations, Paveletskaya, designed by Alexander Krasovsky and opened in 1900, represented a lower-key presence in its sprawling configuration, similar to palaces such as a Sans Souci without the ornamentation.
The original site for the recent competition included a small park facing the station, bordered on one side by the Ring Road. Post WWII, the site was bifurcated by a road, thus separating the front entrance of the station from the grassy area facing it.
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Aerial View of site, Rendering: ©Eller + Eller Architekten
Siemens new Healthineers campus in Bengaluru, India, is hardly a milestone in the design of major R&D facilities. Although the winning design by Eller + Eller Architekten did include the necessity to go higher than the 2- to 4-story models we often find, whether in Silicon Valley, Detroit, or in Munich, the relatively small site for such a large program did ask for that campus feel, asking the competitors to focus on the interdisciplinary factor as well as sustainability and cost.
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Image Courtesy Network Rail
From Grand Central Station to King’s Cross in London, railway stations have often represented some of the major architectural accomplishments of our times. But those edifices have been primarily located in great cities. In the U.K. there are over 2,000 stations located in medium-sized, small, and rural communities. Most of those are ‘quick stop’ locations, and not the destination terminals where space requirements often result in state of the art design.
In July of last year, U.K.’s Network Rail, in collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) launched a competition to identify a concept for a design that would be suitable for the medium to small-sized rail stations, at the same time updating the program to fit the modern needs of such a facility. The competition was open internationally and received 213 entries from 34 countries last September.
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