Upon their recent selection to host the International Specialized Exposition in 2017 (EXPO 2017) with a theme Energy of the Future, National Company Astana and Mayor’s Office of Astana launched a sponsored international architectural competition for the development of a concept design of EXPO facilities, including an installation to serve as the symbol of EXPO 2017 in Astana. The objective of the competition is to get conceptual architectural and urban planning solutions and ideas for EXPO facilities. The competition began last week and will last until June 18.The winner will get award equal to 15 Million KZT (equivalent to US$ 100,000). For more information, please visit here.
In the framework of New Culture Festival, 'Art-Ovrag 2013: Garden City', there is currently an open call for their open architectural international competition “Balancing Pavilion”. The event, which takes place annually in Vyksa, Russia, gathers the best modern art designers, architectures and artists in one place. The 30 best projects will be presented on the exhibitions in Vyksa city, Volga department of NCCA (Nizhny Novgorod) and State Museum of architecture named after Schusev, Moscow. The deadline to register is March 22nd and the submission deadline is March 30th. To register, and for more information, please visit here.
White Noise (or The Buzz) reveals the latent potential of the community. It is the sound of the talent and value around us. The installation harnesses this latent value with an interactive sound environment (a collaboration with ARUP Acoustics) embedded in a playful series of figural abstractions, clad with white synthetic turf. The foregrounded backdrop of the architecture highlights the project’s main event, sharing and exchange among the people in the space, and manipulates readings of scale.
During a time of paralizing political turmoil, local leaders are stepping up to fulfill their role as pragmatic problem-solvers and combating the tough challenges - such as economic growth, environmental protection, public safety and poverty - facing our cities today. This empowering phenomenon is highlighted by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge, a competition designed to further inspire America’s mayors and local leaders to generate innovative ideas that solve major challenges and improve city life.
Over 300 cities across the nation took the challenge and 20 finalists were selected in November. Now, it is your turn to vote on the idea you believe to have the greatest potential for impact. Five bold ideas will be selected in the coming weeks, each receiving national and local recognition. In addition, the winning city will receive a $5,000,000 grand prize and four other cities will receive $1,000,000 to help implement their ideas.
Four of architecture’s finest has been shortlisted to design what Australian businessman James Packer hopes to be the most iconic building in Sydney since the Opera House. Italian Pritzker Prize-laureate Renzo Piano will compete against Chicago-based Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, New York-based Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates and London-based Wilkinson Eyre Architects to design a $1 billion, six-star Crown Sydney resort on a 6000 square meter site in the inner-city waterfront precinct of Barangaroo.
"Sydney deserves one of the world's best hotels and with these amazing architects I'm confident we will see the most iconic building constructed here since the Opera House," Packer told The Daily Telegraph. "I want this hotel resort to be instantly recognizable around the world and feature on postcards and memorabilia promoting Sydney. That's how you attract international tourists, create jobs and put Sydney on the map."
The ongoing competition for the redevelopment of the landmark Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, Australia has begun to raise some serious questions about the role of the public in architecture. The international competition, which narrowed down a total of 117 applicants to only 6 finalists, is due for completion in mid-2013. Each proposal will be put on display and the public will be invited to vote on their favorite design; what is raising eyebrows, however, is that the result of this public vote will be kept from the jury, who has the final say. The jury will not know what the public likes or dislikes when they place their own votes, and the public preference will only be revealed at the very end along with the jury's decision.
Although there are pros and cons for keeping this information from the jury members, some Australians feel very strongly about their station - and you can certainly argue that they should have a greater say in its future.
Read more about public participation in architecture after the break...
Looking to redefine the relationship between students, buildings and the city of Milan, Bocconi University challenged architects world-wide to design a “campus for the third millennium”. Although first prize was awarded to SANAA’s courtyard-centric complex formed by a series of undulating figures, OMA’s proposal provides an interesting twist to intercity university campuses.
Formulating a composition of objects that “represents a three-dimensional re-learning of humanistic values”, OMA’s Bocconi Urban Campus proposal sets the stage for Homo Economicus. Two clusters of independent buildings - an “extroverted” new school of management and the “introverted” a-frame student housing tower - are centered around a public amphitheater topped by a canopy of “architectural” umbrellas. While the thirteen story tower shelters the more intimate campus programs and acts as a backdrop to the boisterous new school, all spaces remain permeable to the activities of the surrounding city and establish the most appropriate and stimulating connection.
There has been some controversy over the past few months for the George Square redesign in Glasgow, Scotland since we last announced the six shortlisted architecture firms in December. Following the submission and assessment by a jury in January, the project went through an upheaval when Labour leader of the Glasgow City Council, Gordon Matheson announced that the submitted designs would be scrapped in favor of a "facelift" for the square. Numerous reports on the Herald Scotland present conflicting arguments for the turn of events and the abrupt change in plans have left the council, jury, design firms and the public in discontent. It is unclear what the status of the project is today, but for the moment it is on hold as the council discusses ways in which to proceed.
"My Hair is at MoMA PS1" is exactly what it sounds like. TempAgency, composed of architecture firms Kutonotuk and mcdowellespinosa have designed an installation that uses human hair from hair salons and barbershops as architecture. The finalist for 2013 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program has found inspiration in the material waste to develop a project of cultural and design significance. Join us after the break for more images.
With a continuing interest in the exploration of socially important and relevant issues, encouraging the creation of spaces for dialog and the participation of architects resolving concerns through proposed projects; Arquine summons participants to its 15th International Architecture Contest to Re-inhabit the 21st century. Social Housing from the Modern Paradigm.
For this edition of the competition, Arquine joins forces with CANADEVI (National Chamber for the Development industry and promotion of Housing), with the aim of expanding its reach and assuring the participation of the main social contributors faced with the proposed subject matter, Housing in the 21st Century.
Some people love New York. Others fancy London, Sydney, or Hong Kong. While preferences for cities are split, science says that all of us may in fact be hard-wired to love the natural world. Interface, Inc. (NASDAQ: TILE), the world’s largest manufacturer, designer and marketer of carpet tiles, today launched a global competition named “Reconnect Your Space” that calls for architectural, interior or urban landscape design entries that put this affinity for nature, or biophilia, at the forefront. Biophilic design incorporates natural elements into manmade environments in order to help people feel and perform better.
Interface’s “Reconnect Your Space” competition invites architects, designers and students of these disciplines to submit their visions for how biophilia can influence the design of a new or existing space, either inside within built environments or outside in cities. One winning submission will be selected as the most unique, inspiring and purposeful way of reconnecting this space with nature. “Reconnect Your Space” is also intended to foster dialogue, spark ideas and pique global interest in biophilic design for working, playing and living.
Organized by International Art Consultants (IAC) and supported by The Royal Photographic Society, the Architect’s Eye competition has been celebrating and encouraging architects’ passion for photography since 2007. Now, in its fourth edition, UK architects are challenged to submit photos into two distinct categories: Architecture and Place and Architecture and People. The former focuses solely on the aesthetics of the architecture and places it creates, while the latter explores and celebrates the interaction of people with the environments created by architects. There are no restrictions on which buildings qualify for the competition.
With an intention to attract and impress viewers with his massive scale, Hehas been selected as winner of the 2013 Young Architects Program (YAP) MAXXI in Rome, an annual competition that promotes and supports young and emerging architects in collaboration with MAXXI Architettura, MoMA/MoMA PS1 of New York, Constructo of Santiago and, for the first time, Istanbul Modern, Turkey.
Turin-based studio bam! bottega di architettura sostenibile, designed He as a grandiose and buoyant installation that transforms the concrete MAXXI facade and expansive piazza into a visual spectacular, while offering a shady escape from the Summer heat.
The U.S. Department of State recently announced a request for proposals from any U.S. nonprofit organization at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale, which is set to take place June 7-November 23, 2014. This includes museums, galleries, design centers, schools of architecture and design, and independent curators affiliated with a non-profit organization. The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2013. For more information, please visit here.
AECOM has announced 'Unslumming Kibera' as winner of the fourth annual Urban SOS competition.
The student competition received submissions from 118 universities in 41 countries. Three projects were shortlisted for a presentation to a panel of judges in New York on Jan 16.
Read about the finalists and their projects after the break
Mumbai, like many populous modern cities, has a traffic problem that may be better be categorized as a traffic nightmare. At the Kala Nagar Junction, where five main traffic arteries merge to connect nearly 60,000 commuters per hour from the Island City to the western suburbs of Mumbai, the BMW Guggenheim Lab and Mumbai Environmental Social Network launched a competition to search for realistic solutions to the infrastructural tangle. Likely designed when traffic congestion was not as severe, the Kala Nagar Junction is no longer capable of accommodating the daily commuter demand. The competition, open to students and professionals, called on participants to consider solutions that not only resolved the traffic problems, but also produced public spaces and safe pedestrian routes. The six winning designs - 3 from the professional category, 2 from the student category and 1 people's choice that was decided by community votes and visitors to the Guggenheim Design Lab.
All professionally active individuals or legal persons such builders, architectural bureaus, local government, construction firms, or other companies are invited to submitted projects for the Architecture of Necessity 2013 Competition dated between 2010 and 2013, whether they have been built or not. The submitted material must include a short text describing the project in relation to the Architecture of Necessity, which espouses the values of being responsible, diligent, sustainable, just, and open. Entries should be submitted to Virserum Art Museum no later than February 15. For more information, please visit here.
London and Barcelona-based practice AZPA (Alejandro Zaera-Polo Architecture) has been announced as winner of an international competition aimed to establish a permanent residence for the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland. Breaking away from the starchitect notion of public architecture needing to make an “extravagant gesture”, AZPA’s innovative proposal partakes in an act of “urban recycling” by reusing the pre-existent, nineteenth century structure of Piazza Castello and transforming its interior courtyard into three sizable theaters. Additionally, a complimentary renovation will take place on the surrounding Piazza Remo Rossi, which will be repaved with red natural stone that essentially provides a “permanent red carpet” qualified to host an array of festival related events.
As Architect Alejandro Zaera-Polo describes: "I do not want to redraw the city, but keep the city."
AZPA’s winning design not only preserves and capitalizes on the existing integrity of the city, but the strategies employed makes this an economically viable solution. With an estimated price tag of 28 million Swiss Francs, this renovation is said to be no more than the cost of a complete demolition.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced the winner of adAPT NYC - a city-sponsored competition that challenged developer-led teams to design an innovative micro-apartment that responds to 21st century housing problems. With an all time high of 8.4 million people, and an expected million more by 2030, New York City’s shortfall of affordable one and two person apartments is continuing to grow at a staggering rate. In an effort to solve this imbalance, the winner of adAPT NYC will build an experimental project on a piece of city-owned land in Kips Bay, Manhattan, that has been alleviated from the 1987 density restriction that requires all new apartments to be greater than 400 square feet.
“The growth rate for one- and two-person households greatly exceeds that of households with three or more people, and addressing that housing challenge requires us to think creatively and beyond our current regulations,” said Bloomberg.
Yesterday, the shortlisted teams for Kent State’s new, $40 million College of Architecture and Environmental Design pitched their designs to the Kent community. From “simple and functional to splendidly provocative”, these proposals offer a range of innovative solutions that will satisfy Kent’s mission to create a modern campus that offers an outstanding academic experience and enriches the greater community of Kent, Ohio.
The four finalists, which were selected from 37 international teams, were challenged to design a 122,000 square foot, sustainable exemplar, possibly capable of achieving net-zero energy, that unites Kent State’s architecture program under one roof, while inspiring interdisciplinary collaboration within flexible learning spaces.
Get a sneak peak of each proposal after the break.
The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 has selected CODA’s (Caroline O’Donnell, Ithaca, NY) large-scale, self-supporting Party Wall, made from leftover shreds of skateboard material, as winner of the 2013 Young Architects Program (YAP). Drawn from five finalists, the porous skin of CODA’s temporary urban landscape will shade visitors of the Warm Up Summer Music series with its reclaimed woven screen, while providing water in refreshing cooling stations and seating with its detachable wooden skin on the lower half of the linear structure.
The 2013 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship has recently been launched and is inviting applications from schools of architecture around the world. Proposals for research might include: learning from the past to inform the future; the future of society; the density of settlements; sustainability; the use of resources; the quality of urban life; and transport. A £6,000 grant will be awarded to one student by a panel of judges which includes Lord Foster and the President of the RIBA. The deadline for submissions is Friday, April 26. For more information, please visit here.
Unique among architecture prizes with its focus on early-career architects, the Wheelwright Prize, recently launched by Harvard Graduate School of Design, is a $100,000 traveling fellowship awarded annually for exceptional itineraries in research and discovery. Recognizing the importance of field research to professional development, the prize reinforces the school’s dedication to fostering investigative approaches to contemporary design. Applications are currently being accepted until February 28. For more information, please visit here.
