Population growth, increasing urbanisation and social change pose new challenges for architecture and urban planning. Reflecting these processes of change, Superscape opens a creative space for unconventional ideas meant to deliver new impulses to real-life architectural output and urban development. The biennial prize seeks to encourage innovative and visionary architectural concepts that explore new models of living and strategies for inhabiting an urban context over a broad expanse of 30 years.
MIXED-USE CITY
Living, Working and Urban Production
Like the earlier industrial revolution, it is now the digital revolution that is influencing social, economic and socio-cultural processes and, hence, making increased demands on the functionality and use of urban habitats. The barriers between public and private space, between living and working, between digital and analogue are steadily disappearing. The relentless merging of many of the aspects of the lives of the inhabitants and users of cities and the shifting of these to the digital level mean that the built environment can no longer be structured in a mono-functional way.
As we search for forward-looking, sustainable and people-oriented approaches to urban development the idea of “mixed use” has huge potential. In this context, urban production and its increasing importance as a significant element of the diversified city plays a prominent role.
The ever more intensive relationships between and mutual interconnectedness of knowledge, research, development, culture and services and the new manufacturing methods brought by digitalisation are also re-establishing the place and role of production in the city. The task for architecture is to test creative concepts, innovative models and solutions that propose visions of the future and experimental designs and address the spatial and social challenges of urban (living) space in the year 2050. This exercise raises many questions:
How can mixed-use solutions that combine urban production with living, working and public space function in both spatial and social terms? Which types and sectors of production come into question? And what added value will this generate for users?
What needs must be met by the residential building of the future against the background of changing living conditions, new everyday cultures and a permanently diversifying society (multi-local or temporary living, individualisation, the sharing economy etc.)?
Which design approaches enable the functions and qualities of a whole range of mixed-use options to be accommodated? What is the role of public space?
How can the existing city be involved in this process? Which solutions, products and services could prove to be ecological, economic, social, functional and also sustainable? How can these also address social diversity and varying needs?
How can new spatial and functional structures impact upon mobility behaviour, transport infrastructures, logistics, commerce and waste management as well as private and public resources?
What is the role of economic processes and innovative technologies? Which options and possibilities present themselves in the context of social and technical integration for architecture, urban design and living space and its inhabitants?
Motivation of the Organisers
Starting with this year’s edition of Superscape the prize is offered as a joint project by the private developers, JP Immobilien, and the non-profit developers, WBV-GPA Wohnbauvereinigung für Privatangestellte. Both develop not only living spaces, but living environments. Therefore, they strive to support social, cultural and environment-related issues as part of their corporate responsibility. In their work they also address the changes in society that are accompanying digitalisation – such as the changes in how we live and work and where these activities take place – particularly in the context of this year’s subject of the mixed-use city. Since architecture and urban planning always also interfere with the social environment, it is important to make a lasting contribution to the tension-filled field of architecture, its protagonists, inhabitants and designers. Thus, Superscape mainly focuses on establishing a long-term workshop of ideas and providing visionary concepts that deliver impulses for today’s projects.
Award Process and Organisation
The organisation and implementation of the architectural competition has been entrusted to:
art:phalanx, Agentur für Kultur und Urbanität
Project manager: Sarah Hellwagner
Project assistant: Selina Kainz
Project assistant and PR: Enzo Meisel
Contact: mail@superscape.at; +43 1 524 98 03 16
The Award Process and Procedural Basis
The first phase of the architectural competition is an anonymous, open process. After the expert jury has nominated the shortlist (max. six projects), the individual protagonists will be invited to participate in a non-anonymous process, during which the project sketches will be elaborated further. The legal basis for the process is this call for entries and the answers to the questions asked to the organisers (FAQ), which can be viewed in an anonymised version at www.superscape.at/eng/.
The competition will be carried out in German. Submissions in English are also accepted. By submitting materials, candidates acknowledge the rules of the competition. The decisions of the expert jury are final. The adjudication and the ranking of the submissions cannot be appealed against. Legal recourse is excluded.
Eligibility
Eligible candidates must have at least a degree in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning or design from a university or academy. Multi-disciplinary teams are eligible, provided they have at least one member who fulfils these criteria. Eligibility must be proven by submitting a copy of the degree certificate. If the submitted project or concept is the subject of a commercial assignment or a research project, this must be stated explicitly.
Criteria for Exclusion or Elimination
The following are excluded from participation:
• Anyone involved in preparing the text of the call for entries.
• The preliminary adjudicators and jury members, their close relatives, as well as their office or company partners.
A submission shall also be excluded if the candidate tries to influence a member of the expert jury in his or her decision as a jury member.
Prize Value
The architectural award Superscape 2020 carries a cash value of 10,000 Euro (including the VAT rate applicable in the winner’s country of residence or business). The shortlisted nominees will receive an allowance of 2,000 Euro to help defray their costs (also including the VAT rate applicable in the participants’ country of residence or business).
Additional prize in Vienna – Founders Lab
Offered by our cooperation partner: the Vienna Business Agency
The jury and the Vienna Business Agency will choose a project from all the entries to Superscape from Vienna and will offer the authors of this project the opportunity to participate in the two-month learning and workshop format “Founders lab” in autumn 2020. The participants in Founders Lab – Creative Industries, a new vocational learning and workshop format, are professionally accompanied and individually coached for two months by top-level experts and trainers from the creative industries and firmly anchored in Vienna’s creative industries network.
Dates
End of submission Phase 1: Monday, March 16, 2020, 4 pm CET
First meeting of the Expert Jury: Monday, April 20, 2020
Public announcement of the shortlist and of the winners of the additional prize: May 2020
End of submission Phase 2: Monday, August 24, 2020
Final meeting of the Expert Jury: Monday, September 14, 2020
Public announcement of the winning project: October 2020
Download the information related to this competition here.
Title
Superscape 2020Type
Call for SubmissionsWebsite
Organizers
Submission Deadline
March 16, 2020 04:00 PMVenue
Vienna, AustriaPrice
Free