Xingdong New Area Urban Design Competition: City of the Future

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 ...
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Investigating Chicago’s Most Complex Infrastructure Issue

  The O’Hare International Airport Competition   Winning entry – Studio-ORD   The updating and modernization of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport has been well overdue. Aside from occasional problems caused by Chicago’s winter storms, congestion at the airport has led air travelers to avoid the airport when catching a connecting flight is on the agenda. So Chicago, noted for its modern ...
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A Quest to Memorialize a Serious Hate Crime: The Pulse Memorial Competition

Winning entry by Coldefy & Associés (image © Coldefy & Associés)   In these times when political emotions run high and gun violence is the norm, not the exception; and when emotions no longer are held in check, but encouraged by our leaders, minorities become easy targets for those who adhere to ideologies based primarily on exclusivity and ...
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A New State Archive in Kitzingen, Germany

  1st Place – gmp Architekten  Photo: ©Hans-Joachim Wuthenow, Berlin   As part of a policy to relocate archives of local interest outside of major Bavarian cities, a competition was staged for the design of a new archive in Kitzingen, 12 miles from the provincial capital city of Würzburg, Germany. The competition was open to qualified teams in ...
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Vilnius Concert Hall Competition

    Winning entry by Arquivio Architects (image © Arquivio Architects)   The Process   In July 2019 the Vilnius Concert Hall competition jury began its deliberations to identify a suitable design for this major performing arts project. As one might have anticipated, two of the  jurors on the seven member panel, Ole Gustavsen (Snohetta) and Andreas Cukrowicz (Nachbaur Architekten) had won ...
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Babyn Yar Ukrainian Memorial Competition


1st Prize Entry by querkraft architekten (Image © querkraft architekten)

 

 

Memorials to commemorate atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II have taken many forms. Holocaust museums such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. by Pei Cobb Freed or the Jewish Museum in Berlin by Daniel Libeskind, all endeavor to paint a broad picture, including narratives covering most of the major events and sites. Former concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Dachau, Theresienstadt and Buchenwald have been frequent tour destinations. In the case of Buchenwald, the local city of Weimar has placed pictures of “Witnesses” throughout the downtown area as a reminder of the Nazi legacy.

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A Cultural Cluster as Community Asset in Detroit

DIA Plaza: Detroit’s Midtown Cultural Connection Competition   Aerial view  – winning entry by DSQ (image © DSQ)   The Space Between Buildings   Detroit’s Dia Plaza competition is hardly unique in initiating a search for urbanistic solutions to a cultural cluster. Vienna, Berlin, Mesa, Fort Worth, Chicago’s Millennium Park and Paris’ Parc de la Villette are just a few examples of ...
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A New City University Takes Shape

MK:U’s Forward Looking Model Explored in Detail Winning entry by Hopkins Architects (© Malcolm Reading Consultants / Hopkins Architects)   Milton Keynes, known simply as MK, represented one of the more significant results of the UK’s “new town” programs from the 1950s and 60s. Situated almost equidistant between Oxford and Cambridge, and within easy access from London, the ...
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Chicago Disruptive Housing

Winning entry by Greg Tamborino   If cities in the U.S. are anticipating funding from government entities to solve a dire need for affordable housing, they should be prepared for a long wait. The national government, a traditional source of funds for such projects, has shown little if no interest in the issue, and state and local ...
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A New “Smart City” as Education Hub

Winning entry by Hopkins Architects with Prior + Partners (© Malcolm Reading Consultants / Hopkins Architects)   In an ambitious plan to facilitate hi-tech research and development, the MK:U competition was launched in January 2019 to seek a masterplan for a new university. The site of the new university at MK is located at the heart of the ...
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