Beth Blostein and Bart Overly both received their B.Arch at Ohio State University. Before founding the firm, Blostein Overly Architects, Beth received her M.Des at Harvard’s GSD, and Bart went on to receive his M.Arch at Princeton University. Both spent time in larger firms in Columbus, Ohio, before establishing their own firm: Beth at Design Group Columbus, and Bart at the Columbus office of NBBJ. as well as teaching at the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State University.
After establishing their own firm, they entered and won several competitions:
– SECCA “Home: House” competition
– New Housing New York Competition
– Ferrous Park Housing competition, Kansas City
– Boston Center for the Arts Urban Plaza
In the meantime, they have private residences under construction in the Columbus, Ohio suburbs and environs.
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Allison Williams FAIA, since 2013 Vice President and Director of Design for AECOM’s U.S. West region, has risen through the ranks of large architecture firms to her present position: SOM, Ai (merged with Perkins + Will) to AECOM. Along the way, there have been several competitions, some of which have been built. One of the most notable was the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, the competition having occurred in 2003 and completion in 2009.
As is often the case with large firms, Allison was leading the design studios for major projects. Among those were San Jose Museum of Art Addition; Yerba Buena Tower, San Francisco; Tower City, Cleveland, Ohio (winning competition entry—unbuilt); Richmond (CA) Civic Center Master Plan; Echelon Corporate Headquarters Cmpus, San Jose; Toledo Federal Courthouse Finalist (GSA Design Excellence Program); Calexico US Port of Entry (CA), competition 2011 and GSA commission; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California.
Allison Williams received her B.Arch and M.Arch from the University of California, Berkeley.
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As Managing Director of Busby Perkins+Will, Peter is involved in the design and sustainable direction of each project the firm engages. Overseeing design offices in Vancouver, British Columbia and Seattle, Washington, and now San Francisco, Peter directs more than 100 employees working on projects across Canada, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. As a director of Perkins+Will since 2004, Peter has expanded his role to include sustainable design leadership to the firm’s 23 offices worldwide; and Perkins+Will has been recognized internationally as the leader in sustainable building design, having the largest portfolio of built green projects in North America
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with Olha Romaniuk
Jacques Ferrier’s career as a provincial architect to one of France’s major players in the profession took a dramatic turn with his competition win for the Water Treatment Plant in Paris. After that, he has won numerous competitions, including a competition for the Airbus France buildings at Paris-Orly airport, the Cite de la Voile Eric Tabarly in Lorient, Piper Heidsieckand Charles Heidsieck Headquarters, and theFrench Pavilion First Prize for the Universal Exposition in Shanghai.
Partially as a result of his award-winning competition entry for the Water Treatment Plant, he has become a major player in energy and sustainability issues as a member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation Building Energy, created in 2005 to promote European research projects in sustainable development.
He has also been active as a writer, including Useful Poetry of Useful Things and Concept Office.
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Since opening an office in Warsaw, Poland in 1991, Andrzaj Bulanda of Bulanda Mucha Architects has won a number of competitions, many of which have been realized. Some of the more impressive are the BRE BANK Headquarters in Bydgoszcz, the adaptation and modernization of Rother Mill and the Hotel PRUDENTIAL in Warsaw. Bulanda received his M.Engineering at the Warsaw Polytechnic, worked with Rolf Gutbrot and Frei Otto in Berlin before receiving a B.Arch from the University of Detroit. He was later a visiting scholar at Harvard’s GSD, then taught for one year at Pennsylvania State University.
Andrzej Bulanda and Vlodzimierz Mucha
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with Olha Romaniuk
Born in Naples, Italy in 1969, Silvio d’Ascia is a 1993 graduate of the School of Architecture of the University of Naples, from which he also obtained a Doctorate in Research in Architectural Composition. Moving to Paris in 1993, he established his own firm in 2001 following several years of working in association with other firms in France and abroad. The new Porta Susa high-speed rail station in Turin allowed him to develop his passion for an architecture serving as a link between the past and the future. Since then he has won other commissions for rail stations, and even branched out to win projects in the People’s Republic of China.
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Mark Robbins was elected President and CEO of The American Academy in Rome in fall 2013 following an international search, and brings to the Academy extensive experience as an artist, architect and educator. Mark came to the Academy from his position as Executive Director of the International Center of Photography in New York, a museum and educational institution dedicated to the presentation and interpretation of the reproduced image. From 2004 to 2012, as Dean and Professor at Syracuse University School of Architecture and University Senior Advisor on Architecture and Urban Initiatives, he had a transformative role on both the school and the city.
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In the design world, Italy is not only famous as a repository of classical architecture and art, but also for its current collection of artists and architects who have gained an international reputation in modern design. But for those not specializing in product design, opportunities in Italy are limited. Enter Franco Purini, an Italian architect who is not only known as a practicing professional, but is one of the world’s more interesting theorists. Probably because he is based in Italy, where classical architecture is so predominant, Purini has found a way to wed the classical and modern in a theoretical system. Whereas the classical achieves order and avoids chaos, neo-rationalism enables the designer to achieve the same by putting in place a new set of rules. On the other hand, Purini is a firm advocate of the element of surprise, sometimes seen in his architecture as a non-connector, which normally is part of an essential support system.
Along the way, Purini entered numerous competitions, winning a Florence planning competition in 1977 and the Urban Park Competition in Calabria in 2001. Since 1977 he has been the Professor of Architectural Composition and City Planning at the Sapienza University, Rome.
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Peter Schaudt’s migration from the study of architecture to landscape architecture has resulted in the establishment of one of the country’s most important landscape architecture firms. Initially studying architecture at the University of Illinois’ Chicago campus, his merit award for his Vietnam Veterans Memorial entry as an undergraduate in 1981 was an indication of things to come. After joining landscape architect Dan Kiley’s office, and receiving his MLA at Harvard, he was involved in a number of competitions, two of which were with the office of Michael Van Valkenburgh. In 1990 he was the American Academyi of Rome Prize winner in Landscape Architecture, then shortly afterwards established his own practice in Chicago. Subsequent competition winners—in collaboration with other firms—included the Erie Street Plaza Competition in Milwaukee and the team of PLANT Architects, Shore Irwin Tilbe and Adrian Blackwell for the international Nathan Phillips Square competition in Toronto. Later he joined the Perkins and Will team to win the Shanghai Nature Museum and Plaza competition.
In 2008 his firm merged with Douglas Hoerr, FASLA, to form Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects.
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Recognized in the international design community as one of the principal landscape architecture firms in this country, Balmori Associates is often invited by architecture firms to take part in competitions as the landscape design component of the team. In this role, she was part of a winning team with Zaha Hadid Architects for the Amman Performing Arts Center in Jordan, as well as the winning World Mammoth +Permafrost Museum in Russia with Leeser Architects. Among other international successes have been the winning Campa de los Ingleses riverfront project in Bilbao, Spain, and as a finalist in the 10 Li Ring Park, Sejong, Korea competition. Her minimalist design for the World War II Memorial competition in Washington, DC, as one of five finalists, was a serious contender for the commission. More recently, Balmori Associates was one of five invited finalists in the high-profile Lexington (KY) Town Branch Competition. She was engaged as a consulting firm to manage the realization of the Beale Street Landing project on the Mississippi River, the result of a winning competition entry by RTN of Buenos Aires.
Diana Balmori has held teaching positions at Yale University and the State University of New York (SUNY). After a tenure at Cesar Pelli Architects, where she headed the landscape architecture studio, she founded her own firm in New York in 1990.
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Helsinki Central Library, by ALA Architects (2012-2018)
The world has experienced a limited number of open competitions over the past three decades, but even with diminishing numbers, some stand out among projects in their categories that can’t be ignored for the high quality and degree of creativity they revealed. Included among those are several invited competitions that were extraordinary in their efforts to explore new avenues of institutional and museum design. Some might ask why the Vietnam Memorial is not mentioned here. Only included in our list are competitions that were covered by us, beginning in 1990 with COMPETITIONS magazine to the present day. As for what category a project under construction (Science Island), might belong to or fundraising still in progress (San Jose’s Urban Confluence or the Cold War Memorial competition, Wisconsin), we would classify the former as “built” and wait and see what happens with the latter—keeping our fingers crossed for a positive outcome.
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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/
RUR model perspective – ©RUR
New Kaohsiung Port and Cruise Terminal, Taiwan (2011-2020)
Reiser+Umemoto RUR Architecture PC/ Jesse Reiser – U.S.A.
with
Fei & Cheng Associates/Philip T.C. Fei –R.O.C. (Tendener)
This was probably the last international open competition result that was built in Taiwan. A later competition for the Keelung Harbor Service Building Competition, won by Neil Denari of the U.S., the result of a shortlisting procedure, was not built. The fact that the project by RUR was eventually completed—the result of the RUR/Fei & Cheng’s winning entry there—certainly goes back to the collaborative role of those to firms in winning the 2008 Taipei Pop Music Center competition, a collaboration that should not be underestimated in setting the stage for this competition.
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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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