WPA2 : Local Code / Real Estates from Nicholas de Monchaux on Vimeo.
Showing posts with label competitions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label competitions. Show all posts
WPA Video: Local Code / Real Estates
I managed to butcher the announcement of the WPA 2.0 finalists a few weeks back... (which should be up to date now)... and was made aware of it thanks to Ben Golder, one of the team members from the Local Code team. He recently sent me this link to a video of their project. I will post some more when they are available, but for now enjoy this one.
Open Source House Design Competition
WPA 2.0 Student Finalists
As a follow-up to the previous post, the student award finalists were announced as well, including a few of the notables images from some of the entries.
“R_Ignite” was designed by four graduate students of the Manchester School of Architecture – Peter Millar, Jamie Potter, Andy Wilde and Stuart Wheeler. This proposal revitalizes port cities and greens the shipwrecking industry through the addition of recycling and social activities."
:: image via Bustler
“Aquaculture Canal_New Orleans,” by Fadi Masoud, a Landscape Architecture student at the University of Toronto, envisions the New Orleans’ Industrial Canal as productive infrastructure for flood control and aquaculture. The jury noted that the winning submissions were ideal as a pair, representing the range of innovative ideas relevant to WPA 2.0."
:: image via Bustler
Additional finalists included:
“R_Ignite” was designed by four graduate students of the Manchester School of Architecture – Peter Millar, Jamie Potter, Andy Wilde and Stuart Wheeler. This proposal revitalizes port cities and greens the shipwrecking industry through the addition of recycling and social activities."
:: image via Bustler
“Aquaculture Canal_New Orleans,” by Fadi Masoud, a Landscape Architecture student at the University of Toronto, envisions the New Orleans’ Industrial Canal as productive infrastructure for flood control and aquaculture. The jury noted that the winning submissions were ideal as a pair, representing the range of innovative ideas relevant to WPA 2.0."
:: image via Bustler
Additional finalists included:
St Viaduct: Polytechnic HighSchool & Transportation Center; Studio Three - Douglas Segulja - Parsons School of Constructed Environments
Fluctuating Freeway Ecologies; The Crop - Gary Garcia . Marc Yeber . Iris Tsai . Xiaoye Zhang - USC School of Architecture
urban ConAgraculture; Dale Luebbert - University of Nebraska
Cash for Clunkers = Bike Sharing for Chicago; M-Squared - Matt Moore IIT
Topographic Infrastructure: Hollywood Freeway Central Park; YMeng; Meng Yang; USC School of Architecture
Just the names themselves sound intriguing, and there will undoubtedly be some additional images of the rest of the student winners down the line a bit, so stay tuned. Amazing work and great to see the interdisciplinary nature of infrastructure realized with a mix of architecture and landscape architecture student's getting honored. I hope to follow up with some thoughts (beyond this simple rehashing on the words and images) in due time.
WPA 2.0 Winners
[post corrected on 12.13.09]
I have been remiss in posting about the WPA 2.0 competition beyond this initial post way back when... it's been exciting to see both the professional and student awards coming together into a fabulous compilation on information on the reinvention of public infrastructure. So alas, it was time to capture at least a portion of the great ideas that came from the submittals.
Carbon T.A.P // Tunnel Algae Park
The grand prize winner of the competition was: "... the brainchild of PORT architects Andrew Moddrell and Christopher Marcinkoski of Chicago and New York. The proposal uses algae pontoons to capture mobile-source carbon-dioxide emissions along New York City’s transportation arteries and employ them in bio-fuel production, creating an urban park with structured wetlands, aquatic and avian habitat, recreation amenities, as well as high speed bike lanes and public promenades. The jury... was unanimous in its decision, citing two primary qualities: The floating, carbon-capturing bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan would be a visible marker for the tunnel hidden below, and the periodic rotation of the parkway across the river had the power to reshape the image of the city."
:: images via Bustler
There is also a video of the winner here:
The remainder of the finalists are captured on the WPA site (provided by competition sponsor cityLAB), from this post on Bustler. The other five finalist entries are found below:
HYDRO-GENIC CITY, 2020
"Through the development of integrated, ecologically sensitive, and aesthetically compelling architecture, this proposal seeks to turn the often mechanistic infrastructural system of LA - in this case, the waterworks - into an interactive and sensory series of public nodes. As mist platforms/light rail stations, urban beaches, energy producing water treatment plants, solar-panel encased water towers, pools, and aquatic parking lots, these water-based landscapes become organizational moments for community building."
:: images via Bustler
Local Code / Real Estates
"Tapping into the Department of Public Works catalogue of San Francisco's "unaccepted streets" (those no longer maintained by the city and hence neglected and often impassable), this proposal utilizes various computer models and statistical data to determine and propose new public, park-based uses for these interstitial spaces. Over 1600 of these sites are available, a selection of which are analyzed for the proposal in terms of elevation and topography, microclimate, soil type, hydrology, population density and demographics, economics, crime, and existing networks to determine the most parametrically appropriate transformation of use."
:: images via Bustler
Coupling Infrastructures: Water Economies/Ecologies
"This proposal focuses on America’s impending water crisis, particularly in cities in the southwest where growth is high and water availability is limited, by rethinking water use, distribution, and storage. Using the Salton Sea as a model site, the proposal envisions “converting the Sea back to its recreational use while allowing multiple economic opportunities for the production of water, salt, and more efficient greenhouses.” Here “infrastructure [becomes] an extension of nature.” Island pods provide for salt harvesting, recreation, and new animal habitats."
:: images via Bustler
Border Wall as Infrastructure
“[T]here exists far more potential in a construction project that is estimated to cost up to $1,325.75 per linear foot.” Recognizing the high cost, limited effectiveness and unintended natural consequences of the new, multi-layered US/Mexico border wall (disruption of animal habitats, diversion of water runoff that has caused new flooding in nearby towns), this proposal names 30 alternatives (covering nearly the whole of the Mexican alphabet, literally from Aqueduct wall to Zen wall) that might better combat the energy crisis, risk of death from dehydration, disruption of animal habitat, loss of vegetation, negative labor relations, missing creative vision and lack of cross-cultural appreciation likely in the government sponsored version."
:: images via Bustler
1,000,000,000 Global Water Refugees
"Combining the rust belts’ loss of population with its abundance of fresh water, this proposal outlines a strategy for redensification of under-utilized post-industrial landscapes (parts of Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland) by relocating populations threatened by water scarcity."
:: images via Bustler
I have been remiss in posting about the WPA 2.0 competition beyond this initial post way back when... it's been exciting to see both the professional and student awards coming together into a fabulous compilation on information on the reinvention of public infrastructure. So alas, it was time to capture at least a portion of the great ideas that came from the submittals.
Carbon T.A.P // Tunnel Algae Park
The grand prize winner of the competition was: "... the brainchild of PORT architects Andrew Moddrell and Christopher Marcinkoski of Chicago and New York. The proposal uses algae pontoons to capture mobile-source carbon-dioxide emissions along New York City’s transportation arteries and employ them in bio-fuel production, creating an urban park with structured wetlands, aquatic and avian habitat, recreation amenities, as well as high speed bike lanes and public promenades. The jury... was unanimous in its decision, citing two primary qualities: The floating, carbon-capturing bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan would be a visible marker for the tunnel hidden below, and the periodic rotation of the parkway across the river had the power to reshape the image of the city."
:: images via Bustler
There is also a video of the winner here:
The remainder of the finalists are captured on the WPA site (provided by competition sponsor cityLAB), from this post on Bustler. The other five finalist entries are found below:
HYDRO-GENIC CITY, 2020
"Through the development of integrated, ecologically sensitive, and aesthetically compelling architecture, this proposal seeks to turn the often mechanistic infrastructural system of LA - in this case, the waterworks - into an interactive and sensory series of public nodes. As mist platforms/light rail stations, urban beaches, energy producing water treatment plants, solar-panel encased water towers, pools, and aquatic parking lots, these water-based landscapes become organizational moments for community building."
:: images via Bustler
Local Code / Real Estates
"Tapping into the Department of Public Works catalogue of San Francisco's "unaccepted streets" (those no longer maintained by the city and hence neglected and often impassable), this proposal utilizes various computer models and statistical data to determine and propose new public, park-based uses for these interstitial spaces. Over 1600 of these sites are available, a selection of which are analyzed for the proposal in terms of elevation and topography, microclimate, soil type, hydrology, population density and demographics, economics, crime, and existing networks to determine the most parametrically appropriate transformation of use."
:: images via Bustler
Coupling Infrastructures: Water Economies/Ecologies
"This proposal focuses on America’s impending water crisis, particularly in cities in the southwest where growth is high and water availability is limited, by rethinking water use, distribution, and storage. Using the Salton Sea as a model site, the proposal envisions “converting the Sea back to its recreational use while allowing multiple economic opportunities for the production of water, salt, and more efficient greenhouses.” Here “infrastructure [becomes] an extension of nature.” Island pods provide for salt harvesting, recreation, and new animal habitats."
:: images via Bustler
Border Wall as Infrastructure
“[T]here exists far more potential in a construction project that is estimated to cost up to $1,325.75 per linear foot.” Recognizing the high cost, limited effectiveness and unintended natural consequences of the new, multi-layered US/Mexico border wall (disruption of animal habitats, diversion of water runoff that has caused new flooding in nearby towns), this proposal names 30 alternatives (covering nearly the whole of the Mexican alphabet, literally from Aqueduct wall to Zen wall) that might better combat the energy crisis, risk of death from dehydration, disruption of animal habitat, loss of vegetation, negative labor relations, missing creative vision and lack of cross-cultural appreciation likely in the government sponsored version."
:: images via Bustler
1,000,000,000 Global Water Refugees
"Combining the rust belts’ loss of population with its abundance of fresh water, this proposal outlines a strategy for redensification of under-utilized post-industrial landscapes (parts of Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland) by relocating populations threatened by water scarcity."
:: images via Bustler
PlastiCity FantastiCity
The fabulous RMIT based journal KERB has recently announced a new competition called PlastiCity FantastiCity, to envision a new urbanism. From the site: "The competition re-envisions city systems to explore fantastical opportunities that enable groundbreaking and fun projects which shake the design world. A multi-disciplinary approach is encouraged though not required and we are sure that with help from you and your site we can hit our target audience."
The most telling idea of what the competition is about is through the definitions of the two terms - both mashups/portmanteaux with some interesting ideas:
PlastiCity (pro-noun)
Also, stay tuned for my coverage of the previous issue of Kerb 17, which literally amazed me with a series of essays on 'Is LA Dead?', a take on the future of the profession from a range of sources.
The most telling idea of what the competition is about is through the definitions of the two terms - both mashups/portmanteaux with some interesting ideas:
PlastiCity (pro-noun)
FanstastiCity (pro-noun)1. The theory that a space’s most beautiful quality can often be the way in which it is continually made by those who inhabit it.
2. The projection of a speculative world into a pragmatic application.
Look forward to seeing the results - and definitely considering an entry. It's nice to see amidst many of the pseudo-seriousness of the competition scene something to embrace the crazy, outlandish, and fantastic.1. A world of limitless possibilities.
2. The city that exists in your mind, living in your wildest dreams and your most peculiar sketches.
Also, stay tuned for my coverage of the previous issue of Kerb 17, which literally amazed me with a series of essays on 'Is LA Dead?', a take on the future of the profession from a range of sources.
PlastiCity FantastiCity
The fabulous RMIT based journal KERB has recently announced a new competition called PlastiCity FantastiCity, to envision a new urbanism. From the site: "The competition re-envisions city systems to explore fantastical opportunities that enable groundbreaking and fun projects which shake the design world. A multi-disciplinary approach is encouraged though not required and we are sure that with help from you and your site we can hit our target audience."
The most telling idea of what the competition is about is through the definitions of the two terms - both mashups/portmanteaux with some interesting ideas:
PlastiCity (pro-noun)
Also, stay tuned for my coverage of the previous issue of Kerb 17, which literally amazed me with a series of essays on 'Is LA Dead?', a take on the future of the profession from a range of sources.
The most telling idea of what the competition is about is through the definitions of the two terms - both mashups/portmanteaux with some interesting ideas:
PlastiCity (pro-noun)
FanstastiCity (pro-noun)1. The theory that a space’s most beautiful quality can often be the way in which it is continually made by those who inhabit it.
2. The projection of a speculative world into a pragmatic application.
Look forward to seeing the results - and definitely considering an entry. It's nice to see amidst many of the pseudo-seriousness of the competition scene something to embrace the crazy, outlandish, and fantastic.1. A world of limitless possibilities.
2. The city that exists in your mind, living in your wildest dreams and your most peculiar sketches.
Also, stay tuned for my coverage of the previous issue of Kerb 17, which literally amazed me with a series of essays on 'Is LA Dead?', a take on the future of the profession from a range of sources.
Bilbao Jardín Garden
A wonderful addition to the International Urban Garden Competition “Bilbao Jardín 2009”, by Diana Balmori of New York-based Balmori Associates and a design that literally 'climbs the stairs' with a undulating vegetated strip and cor-ten walls splaying out in a wider planter at the lowest landing.
:: image via Bustler - Photo: Iwan Baan
Some of the designers explanatory text, via Bustler: "The garden climbs the stairs, running in undulating lines of different textures and colors. Envisioned as a dynamic urban space; it moves in time and with the seasons. Its lush planting cascades down as though the garden was flowing or melting, bleeding the colors into each other. In one gesture, it narrates a story of landscape taking over and expanding over the Public Space and Architecture, therefore transforming the way that the stairs and the space is perceived and read by the user. It is a garden of contrasts: the contrast between native and exotic plants, between the red flowers and the green grass, between the green grass and the grey paving. In form, the garden engages the horizontal plaza with the rising vertical plane of the steps and the upright gesture of Eduardo Chillida’s sculpture. Like the famous Spanish Steps in Rome, the garden is not only designed for visitors to ascend and descend, but for them to linger, and just be."
:: images via Bustler - Photo: Iwan Baan
It's an elegantly simple composition, and definitely takes advantage of the 'topography' of the stairway and foreshortening perspectives utilized to create a constantly changing perspective of vegetation in a somewhat grand, but otherwise barren staircase area left between the architectural objects. Check out more images including construction photos on Bustler.
:: images via Bustler - Photo: Iwan Baan
:: image via Bustler - Photo: Iwan Baan
Some of the designers explanatory text, via Bustler: "The garden climbs the stairs, running in undulating lines of different textures and colors. Envisioned as a dynamic urban space; it moves in time and with the seasons. Its lush planting cascades down as though the garden was flowing or melting, bleeding the colors into each other. In one gesture, it narrates a story of landscape taking over and expanding over the Public Space and Architecture, therefore transforming the way that the stairs and the space is perceived and read by the user. It is a garden of contrasts: the contrast between native and exotic plants, between the red flowers and the green grass, between the green grass and the grey paving. In form, the garden engages the horizontal plaza with the rising vertical plane of the steps and the upright gesture of Eduardo Chillida’s sculpture. Like the famous Spanish Steps in Rome, the garden is not only designed for visitors to ascend and descend, but for them to linger, and just be."
:: images via Bustler - Photo: Iwan Baan
It's an elegantly simple composition, and definitely takes advantage of the 'topography' of the stairway and foreshortening perspectives utilized to create a constantly changing perspective of vegetation in a somewhat grand, but otherwise barren staircase area left between the architectural objects. Check out more images including construction photos on Bustler.
:: images via Bustler - Photo: Iwan Baan
Reinventing Cities Winners
The finalists for the Reinventing Cities competition have been announced. This open ideas competition was aimed at reinvisioning 'new urban infrastructures'. It's hard to tell too much about the entries themselves w/o any appreciable explanatory text to accompany them, but some views of the graphics. I hope we can get more detail about the entries and winners to see what is behind the graphics.
1: take smoke, makes water - 100m2
2: dynamic transformation in border condition - pyo arquitectos
3: living the outsite - rita topa
4: performative landscapes - david newton
5: infrastructural armature - fletcher studio
In related news, the entry by myself and Brett Milligan '(re)volutionary infrastructures: urban ecotones' (entry #2804) was one of the 9 additional selected projects that were included but didn't officially place. As there were over 200 entries, it's a great honor to be included in this group. Look for some more info as these get collected in publications... for instance an upcoming issue of future architecture magazine. More soon.
1: take smoke, makes water - 100m2
2: dynamic transformation in border condition - pyo arquitectos
3: living the outsite - rita topa
4: performative landscapes - david newton
5: infrastructural armature - fletcher studio
In related news, the entry by myself and Brett Milligan '(re)volutionary infrastructures: urban ecotones' (entry #2804) was one of the 9 additional selected projects that were included but didn't officially place. As there were over 200 entries, it's a great honor to be included in this group. Look for some more info as these get collected in publications... for instance an upcoming issue of future architecture magazine. More soon.
Off Grid 2.0: Healing the Damaged Edge
The ideas competition Off Grid 2.0, sponsored by the California Architecture Foundation, recently announced a slate of winning entries under the theme 'Healing the Damaged Edge'. Definitely take some time to get into the full size PDFs as these thumbnails don't give one the full picture, and there aren't any project statements. A range of graphic styles and interesting ideas that fit into the concept of what the 'edge' is and can become.
Some background via the competition site: "The 24-hour life of the urban fabric of our communities is affecting not only the natural environment, but human health and wellbeing. As the human "footprint" continues to expand, issues surrounding sustainability rise to the forefront. The design and construction industry’s efforts to improve building performance are slowly being adopted…but now is the time to develop unique solutions to respond to these global problems. ... The competition involves finding sustainable solutions for urban infill projects with a zero carbon footprint. These solutions do not necessarily require a built solution – concepts could include providing innovative community development strategies, development of sustainable public policies, infill development concepts, natural resource conservation, multicultural issues, or creation of new materials or systems."
Professional Honor Award + Top Award Winner
by Phoebe Schenker, Emily Bello, Janika McFeely, EHDD Architecture
Professional Merit Award:
Yevgeniy Ossipov, Anderson Anderson Architecture
Special Jury Commendation:
Andrew Dunbar, Zoee Astrachan, Arjun Bhat, Jon Ganey, James Munden, Darren Perry, Amy Wolff - Interstice Architects
Student Honor Award:
Garrett Van Leeuwen, Cal Poly Pomona
Student Merit Award:
Katinka Suedkamp and Laura Duhachek, NewSchool of Art and Architecture
Thanks to Darren Perry at Interstice Architects for the heads up on this one.
Some background via the competition site: "The 24-hour life of the urban fabric of our communities is affecting not only the natural environment, but human health and wellbeing. As the human "footprint" continues to expand, issues surrounding sustainability rise to the forefront. The design and construction industry’s efforts to improve building performance are slowly being adopted…but now is the time to develop unique solutions to respond to these global problems. ... The competition involves finding sustainable solutions for urban infill projects with a zero carbon footprint. These solutions do not necessarily require a built solution – concepts could include providing innovative community development strategies, development of sustainable public policies, infill development concepts, natural resource conservation, multicultural issues, or creation of new materials or systems."
Professional Honor Award + Top Award Winner
by Phoebe Schenker, Emily Bello, Janika McFeely, EHDD Architecture
Professional Merit Award:
Yevgeniy Ossipov, Anderson Anderson Architecture
Special Jury Commendation:
Andrew Dunbar, Zoee Astrachan, Arjun Bhat, Jon Ganey, James Munden, Darren Perry, Amy Wolff - Interstice Architects
Student Honor Award:
Garrett Van Leeuwen, Cal Poly Pomona
Student Merit Award:
Katinka Suedkamp and Laura Duhachek, NewSchool of Art and Architecture
Thanks to Darren Perry at Interstice Architects for the heads up on this one.
Digital Exhaustion
It's seems a little time off makes one introspective, or at the very least a bit nostalgic. Did you ever feel that impossible to scratch, lingering itch in the back of your mind? You know, the one that you can't subsume, but says we've devolved from a culture that celebrates the built beauty and artistry of real work instead of the purely hollow digital promise of things never to be realized (probably for good reason). Recent competitions made me pause in my continual striving for the 'new' and the 'innovative' (perhaps to my detriment) - surmising that the results were somewhat disappointing, wildly unimpressive, or at least detached from a reality in way that is somewhat pointless.
While the Bering Strait competition is somewhat pointless but still cool, and the Rising Tides competition is somewhat cool and still pointless. This doesn't mean these were not necessary, but they at least had some modicum of timeline and program to make them worthwhile in attacking some viable social or global issue. It seems we've entered an age of the neo-competition - that which is more concerned with quick turnaround than substance - actually voiding the root concept of what a competition is built for - meditation on ideas and expansion of the graphic normative processes. We've entered a world of the mundane and the ephemeral that is short on time and equally short of program - which leads to a set of winners that leaves one unimpressed by the results an even questioning why the competition was initiated in the first place. (see 21st Century Streets competition for a recent example).
Reburbia is another great case study in the neo-mundane. By it's very structure, it's an ephemeral collage of ideas... with a short timeline and an open-ended program that is sure to develop ideas that are both shotgun and shot from the hip. I really like the ideas generated (well at least some of them), but they are all just snapshots. And, well, the results were pretty indicative of this web-oriented vs. design oriented paradigm. Apologies to the very successful bloggers and designers who represented the jury - but it's gotta be a tough job to judge this open-ended mileu and decipher something wonderful to present to the design world.
This isn't to demean the 'winners' of these competitions, as this seems to be the new trend - and we should evolve to think of this soundbite sort of project as probably something along the new norm. Six months between initiation and award is something that we no longer have the luxury of . Something that can be swirled around for a solid week prior to the photo-shopping, ready to wow the internet world with the latest idea - oooh, urban ecology, urban agriculture, urban ________. yawn. It's the same kind of cultural change that spawns the excitement of pointless bloggery books, the endless twittering and incessant tumblr-ing that substitutes quantity for content, the new for the real, and exposure for meaning.
At least I'm excited by the WPA 2.0 finalists... something to sink your teeth into at least. More on these later - and continuing into the next phase... ah sweet relief.
While the Bering Strait competition is somewhat pointless but still cool, and the Rising Tides competition is somewhat cool and still pointless. This doesn't mean these were not necessary, but they at least had some modicum of timeline and program to make them worthwhile in attacking some viable social or global issue. It seems we've entered an age of the neo-competition - that which is more concerned with quick turnaround than substance - actually voiding the root concept of what a competition is built for - meditation on ideas and expansion of the graphic normative processes. We've entered a world of the mundane and the ephemeral that is short on time and equally short of program - which leads to a set of winners that leaves one unimpressed by the results an even questioning why the competition was initiated in the first place. (see 21st Century Streets competition for a recent example).
Reburbia is another great case study in the neo-mundane. By it's very structure, it's an ephemeral collage of ideas... with a short timeline and an open-ended program that is sure to develop ideas that are both shotgun and shot from the hip. I really like the ideas generated (well at least some of them), but they are all just snapshots. And, well, the results were pretty indicative of this web-oriented vs. design oriented paradigm. Apologies to the very successful bloggers and designers who represented the jury - but it's gotta be a tough job to judge this open-ended mileu and decipher something wonderful to present to the design world.
This isn't to demean the 'winners' of these competitions, as this seems to be the new trend - and we should evolve to think of this soundbite sort of project as probably something along the new norm. Six months between initiation and award is something that we no longer have the luxury of . Something that can be swirled around for a solid week prior to the photo-shopping, ready to wow the internet world with the latest idea - oooh, urban ecology, urban agriculture, urban ________. yawn. It's the same kind of cultural change that spawns the excitement of pointless bloggery books, the endless twittering and incessant tumblr-ing that substitutes quantity for content, the new for the real, and exposure for meaning.
At least I'm excited by the WPA 2.0 finalists... something to sink your teeth into at least. More on these later - and continuing into the next phase... ah sweet relief.
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