Finalists • Zaha Hadid Architects, London (winner) • Alejandro Zaera-Polo Maider Llaguno Architecture, Spain / Kavakava, Tallinn • Andres Alver, Tallinn
It’s seldom that one finds a separate section in an obituary dedicated to architecture competitions. We shouldn’t have been surprised to find this in the case of Bill Bricken, a frequent participant in design competitions and one of our long-time subscribers. It was also a case where we had published articles on competitions Read more…
The seven-strong shortlist that reached the second stage of the Ross Pavilion International Design Competition was selected from the 125 teams (made up of 400 individual firms) who entered the competition. The Pavilion, which will provide a flexible platform for the imaginative arts and cultural programming that Edinburgh excels in, will allow visitors and Read more…
Image © Tod Williams and Billie Tsien According to the Chicago Tribune, there will be a model presentation of the Obama Library on Wednesday, May 4th. The nonprofit Obama Foundation released a few details about Wednesday’s event, including that Mayor Rahm Emanuel , the president’s first White House chief of staff, will Read more…
Stewart Hollenstein’s winning design for the Green Square Library is under construction and is scheduled for completion early next year. The competition winner is the result of an open international competition which took place in two stages. Stewart Hollenstein, a young Sydney firm, won with their imaginative solution in the second stage Read more…
Winning Entry by FCB (Image © RIBA) Award winning architecture practice Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCB) has won the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) competition to design the new Faculty of Arts Building at the University of Warwick, Coventry, in England’s West Midlands region. The University of Warwick sought Read more…
Sponsor: International Music and Performing Arts Charitable Trust Scotland (IMPACT) Expressions of Interest: 69 This is a shortlist of teams who will compete to design the planned arts centre behind the RBS building at 36 St Andrew Square. The plans are for a 1,000-seat auditorium with rehearsal studios and recording space. The six shortlisted teams Read more…
©Markus Bonauer/Michael Bölling, Berlin with capattistaubach Landschaftsarchitekten
©Markus Schietsch Architekten GmbH mit Lorenz Engster Landschaftsarchitektur & Städtebau GmbH
After two rounds of judging, beginning with 187 entries from around the world, the jury reduced the number of competitors to 28 in the first round, then finally settled on two first-place finalists in the second stage, one of which will be commissioned to design the Center. (One may assume that the limited number of entries in such an important competition was limited by the fact that the competition language was held in German.) The building itself is not the only project element, as a tunnel linking the Visitors Center in the Tiergarten to the Reichstag also is an essential part of the plan. The total cost of the project to the government is to be limited to 150€M. Winners (2)
• Markus Bonauer/Michael Bölling, Berlin with capattistaubach Landschaftsarchitekten
• Markus Schietsch, Zürich with Lorenz Eugster Landschaftsarchitektur & Städtebau GmbH 
Site plan ©Markus Bonauer/Michael Bölling, Berlin with capattistaubach Landschaftsarchitekten
Site Plan ©Markus Schietsch Architekten GmbH mit Lorenz Engster Landschaftsarchitektur & Städtebau GmbH
Honorable Mentions (5)
• BGAA + FRPO Burgos & Garrido Arquitectos Asociados + FRPO Rodriguez & Oriol Arquitectos, Madrid (Spain) with VWA + UBERLAND, Vevey (Switzerland)
• bob-architektur BDA, Köln with FSWLA GmbH, Düsseldorf
• Henn GmbH, Berlin with Ingenieurgesellschaft BBP Bauconsulting mbH, Berlin
• Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten GmbH, Munich with Schüller Landschaftsarchitekten, Munich
• ARGE KIM NALLEWEG Architekten und César Trujillo Moya, Berlin with TDB Landschaftsarchitektur Thomanek Duquesnoy Boemans Partnerschaft, Berlin Read more…
© Stanton Williams / Asif Kahn (courtesy MRC)
The challenge to design a new Museum of London in a very traditional context did not deter some of Europe’s premier modernists from entering this competition. The prize was the conversion of a building in the West Smithfield area, intended to anchor an important cultural district in the city. The new museum, which has a £130-150m construction budget, will secure the future of a series of much-loved heritage buildings at West Smithfield, help regenerate this historic part of the City of London and re-launch the museum, which has seen its audiences soar in recent years. Whereas other major capitals may only have one museum of history, the Museum of London already exists in other locations in the city, most notably in the Square Mile and the Docklands. But establishing a new museum in another location only serves to illustrate the wealth of historical materials accessible to the museum in its archives.
Read more…
The location for the site for the future Obama Library will be in one of two parks on Chicago’s South Side—Jackson Park (the most probable choice at the time) or Washington Park. Both parks were designed by the American landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted’s reputation as a landscape architect really began with his winning entry in New York’s Central Park design competition. There was nothing secretive about the process leading up to Olmsted’s choice as the winner. And millions have been the beneficiaries of that successful competition ever since. Read more… |
Countryside Dilemmas – New Rural Planning 
1st Place – ©Tianjin University Team
Planning used to be at the bottom of Chinese students’ lists of design priorities. One western architect, whose firm was at the forefront in the design and implementation of numerous planning projects in China, surmised that planning was an area that received little attention in the university curricula. So when planning for a major metropolitan area has occurred, the Chinese have almost always turned to outside international firms for ideas and implementation. Read more… 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 Chicago Architecture Club Shines the Spotlight on Another Endangered Landmark 
Public Pool Image: ©Perkins&Will
What do Bertrad Goldberg and Helmut Jahn have in common? Besides having high-profile buildings threatened by demolition, both served as subject matter for two competitions sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Club (CAC)—raising public consciousness about their impending fate. They both produced buildings in a city famous for its architecture that have been abandoned: Goldberg’s Future Prentice Women’s Hospital, demolished in 2014 after a valiant effort by preservationists to save it from the wrecking ball; and Jahn’s Thompson Center, now the object of a similar effort by the State of Illinois to sell it to a developer. Read more… An Ideas Competition in Berlin Seeks Answers 
Winning entry perspective Image: ©AllesWirdGut Architekten
Berlin developer HOWOGE recently staged what was regarded as a “planning Laboratory” competition for a model satellite in northwest Berlin. The brief for this invited competition noted that the urban sprawl, which had accompanied the reunification of Germany(and Berlin) in 1989, was low density in character, occupying wide swaths of suburban areas around the city. With previous high density, and now controversial Berlin projects in mind—the problems with Berlin’s high-density Gropius-Stadt as a warning signal—the sponsor here suggested that lessons learned from past mistakes could be avoided with a high-quality design strategy… Read more… Winner Announced for New Preston Mosque Competition 
LUCA POIAN FORMS Image courtesy RIBA
Facilitator: RIBA
Location: Preston, U.K.
Type: International, open
The competition attracted over 200 entries from 40 different countries.
Five finalists were chosen to participate in a second phase:
Winner
• LUCA POIAN FORMS, London, UK
Finalists - BLANKPAGE Architects, Lebanon
- Borough Architects + buchhandler-nelli + elca, Cambridge, UK
- Mcheileh Studio, New York (Highly Commended by the Evaluation Panel)
- TABE SHOURI, New York
RIBA competition website:
www.architecture.com/competitions Astrakhan Looks to Raise Its Quality of Life Index 
Aerial view of downtown Astrakhan
Planning competitions with a strong landscape component take many forms, including some for plazas and gateways to major town centers, city neighborhood sites with multi-story housing units, university campus plans and finally, comprehensive city plans—the latter either being for new towns, as in China, or strategies for the improvement of existing cities—as was here the case with Astrakhan, a major city on the Volga delta, and the Caspian Sea. Read more… |
