©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.
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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…
It’s never too early to start! That might be the slogan of the Michael G. Myers Student Competition in Houston, which took place earlier this spring and was participated in by students from several of the city’s high schools. The topic of this year’s competition was “Animal House,” the challenge being to design an animal Read more…
With regret and sorrow, we report the passing in April of two of our founding members of The Competition Project, Armand Ostroff and Robert Kissinger. Armand was our Board President since our founding in 1986, and Bob was our Secretary/Treasurer during the same period. Their service was essential to the success and growth of our Read more…
The Obama Library Foundation announced today that Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects / Partners together with local Chicago firm, Interactive Design Architects has been chosen from a shortlist of six finalists as architect for the Obama Library. Although a site on Chicago’s South Side has not yet been finalized, this certainly represents one of the Read more…
Winning design by Adjaye Associates (courtesy MRC, ©Adjaye Associates /AB3D)
Location: Riga, Latvia
Type: RfQ
On June 22, the office of Malcolm Reading Consultants, the competition organizer, announced the results of the competition:
Winner
Adjaye Associates (UK) and AB3D
Finalists
• Caruso St John Architects (UK) and Arhitektu brio’s Jaunromans un Abele
• Henning Larsen Architects (Denmark) and MARK arhitekti
• Lahdelma& Mahlamäki Architects (Finland) and MADE arhitekti
• Neuterings Riedijk Architects (Netherlands) and Brigita Bula arhitekte
• Sauerbruch Hutton (Germany) and Arhitekts Ingurds Lazdins
• wHY (US), OUTOFBOX Architecture and ALPS Read more…
The Architectural League’s Current Work series features the work of significant international figures who powerfully influence contemporary architectural practice and shape the future of the built environment. Craig Dykers and Elaine Molinar will present Snøhetta’s work in a public lecture Read more…
To the Competition Participants:First of all, please accept my deep apologies for the situation.The tendering procedure of New SkyRider International Competition project, conducted by Urban and Rural Development Department, New Taipei City Government (hereinafter referred to as ”Agency”) has been suspended due to the project site, located in the Wenzizhen Redevelopment Zone, cannot be obtained Read more…
The Museum of London announced the six architectural teams shortlisted to design its new museum in West Smithfield in the international design competition organized by Malcolm Reading Consultants (MRC). The museum also released full details of the competition jury. The new museum, which has a £130-150m construction budget, will secure the future of a series Read more… |
San Jose’s Urban Confluence Winner Cancelled 
This week we received the news that the winning design for San Jose’s Urban Confluence competition by SMAR Architecture Studio has been cancelled. This comes after the original competition site was abandoned in favor of one more centrally located in downtown San Jose, Plaza de César Chávez. We can only assume that even this wasn’t enough to generate enough interest from major donors. From the very beginning of the competition, it appeared that the enthusiasm of those sponsoring the competition might be lacking links to potential donors with deep pockets—the hi-tech firms in Silicon Valley. After the competition resulted in a design that certainly entailed a major budget, the project had to be in trouble. The competition did produce a remarkable design; but this turned out to be another case where a competition, intended to generate enough public interest to fund a major project, came up short. -Ed “A Museum for All” 
Winning entry by Weiss/Manfredi Landscape Architecture and Urbanism
Background
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s slogan “Creating a Museum for All” certainly reflects the efforts of many art museums to counter the notion that art museums exist primarily to cater to an elitist few. But one should note that this competition for an expansion of the museum’s capacity to serve a wider audience saw an initial step in this direction with the 1999 competition resulting in the Steven Holl addition, a series of pavilions stretching down one side of the large lawn area..
Read more… Preparation and Organization of Design Competitions 
[phase 1] Benjamin Hossbach / Christian Lehmhaus / Christine Eichelmann
210 × 230 mm, 192 pp.
over 600 images
softcover
ISBN 978-3-86922-316-2 (English)
ISBN 978-3-86922-240-0 (German)
Dom Publishers
€48 in EU (For price abroad, see below)
Founded in 1998 in Berlin, Phase 1 has been a principal player in the organization and facilitation of design competitions, not only in Germany, but abroad as well. The accomplishments of the firm have been well documented in three volumes—The Architecture of Competitions—beginning in 2i006. Whereas these books mainly focused on the results of the competitions they have administered, the present work, Fundamentals of Competition Management, takes one from the very beginnings of the competition process to its conclusion. The authors envisioned the publication as “three three books in one: one „blue book“ with example projects, one „yellow book“ with statements and the „white book“ with the actual guideline to competition management.”
Although there have been a number of handbooks covering the administration of designcompetitions a study covering the entire process in such detail is a welcome addition to the the literature in this field. As a contribution to this important democratic process that has yielded exceptional design for decades, this volume is not only valid for Europe, but a current overview of the process for those globally who wish to raise the level of design by virtue of a design competition. -Ed Foreign institutions wishing to obtain a copy of the book will recieve a discount to cover the cost of foreign shipping.
To obtain a copy for that offer, go to: [email protected] Since the recent realization of SMAR Architecture’s winning design we have now received images from a professional photo shoot. As an open competition for one of the more important projects in Europe at the time, we feel that full documentation of the process from start to finish was an important page in the history of architecture in the early 21st century. Documentation by us during the 2017 competition, with images from all finalists from the 144 entries is available at: https://competitions.org/2020/11/science-island-design-competition-finalists/ 
See more images… 
Completed IMEX by Tuck Hinton Architects. Photo courtesy Anecdote
It is not often that we look back to a competition that occurred three decades ago that was also covered in detail by COMPETITIONS (Vol. 4, #4; pp. 14-27). What made the Chattanooga IMAX different back in 1994 was that the article covering that competition was authored by Prof. Marleen Davis, then Dean of the University of Tennessee’s School of Architecture and a member of the jury panel. This was not just a short article, covering the high points of the competition with a few talking points about the winning design. This 4,000+ word document also described in detail the jury’s observations about all the finalists, including the honorable mentions—one of the few times we have gained such a detailed glimpse in this country from the inside of the competition process. Read more… 
Winning entry by Luca Poian Forms Image ©Filippo Bolognese images
Good design seldom happens in a vacuum. And so it was with an international competition for a new mosque in Preston, U.K. A mid-sized city of 95,000, and located in Lancashire near the west coast and almost equally distant from London and Glasgow, Preston has a storied past, going all the way back to the Romans and the late Middle Ages, where it was the site of significant battles. During the Industrial Revolution, the city prospered, and it was not until after World War II that Preston experienced the British version of the U.S. Rust Belt. In the meantime, the city has experienced an upswing in economic activity, with an unemployment rate of only 3%. Aside from the appearance of new industries, the city has benefitted from the establishment of Central Lancashire University (CLU), which employs over 3,000 faculty and staff, and, as such, is one of the regions major employers. Any new university requires new facilities, and one of the most outstanding examples of this at CLU was the new Student Centre and Plaza, a result of a 2016 RIBA-sponsored competition won by Hawkins/Brown
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 Changdong Station winner – image ©D & B Partners Architects
Whereas international competitions for real projects have become a rarity lately, Korea is a welcome exception. Among the plethora of competition announcements we receive almost weekly, several have ended with foreign firms as winners. But the history of welcoming international participants does go back several years. One notable early example was the Incheon Airport competition, won by Fentress Bradburn Architects (1962-70).
Among the more recent successes of foreign firms was the Busan Opera House competition, won by Snøhetta (2013-) and the Sejong Museum Gardens competition, won by Office OU, Toronto (2016-2023).
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1st Place: Zaha Hadid Architects – night view from river – Render by Negativ
Arriving to board a ferry boat or cruise ship used to be a rather mundane experience. If you had luggage, you might be able to drop it off upon boarding, assuming that the boarding operation was sophisticated enough. In any case, the arrival experience was nothing to look forward to. I recall boarding the SS United States for a trip to Europe in the late 1950s. Arriving at the pier in New York, the only thought any traveler had was to board that ocean liner as soon as possible, find one’s cabin, and start exploring. If you were in New York City and arriving early, a nearby restaurant or cafe would be your best bet while passing time before boarding. Read more… |
