departure City Hype ideas competition

Last year, departure, the creative agency of the City if Vienna launched a series of ideas competitions to bring forward creative ideas for urban innovation in Vienna and beyond. The 2013 issue of the ideas competition - Cycling Affairs - received more that 200 submissions.

With this year’s ideas competition departure launches a project that provides participants with the opportunity to reflect on what the brief calls a "solidarity city" - City Hype  - invites creative professionals and city enthusiasts to formulate their ideas for coexistence on an equal footing, to provide the city with a multifaceted, modern identity and to actively participate in shaping its future. 

The ideas competition is open for individuals, start-ups or collectives from various disciplines located in Vienna or internationally. The submission of multiple entries is possible. Please find the registration form here. 

To steer inspiration for first ideas of potential participants the team of departure came up with core areas and specific questions as relevant to the overall theme of the competition. These questions can be taken as points of departure for working on the ideas competition:

THE SOLIDARITY CITY
Which measures focus on justice and solidarity as basic prerequisites for the social interactions of the city dwellers?

THE NETWORKED CITY
How do technologies react to the requirements of a network society, to its high degree of innovative dynamism and advancing digitalization?

THE FLEXIBLE CITY
How can the requirements imposed by the revolution of the working environment be turned into practice and which new models for work, leisure time and life planning are imaginable?

THE OPEN CITY
Where is room for actively participating in the creation of communicative locations and how can we succeed in making the city a modern ‘place of action’ for all its inhabitants?

THE INTELLIGENT CITY
Which sustainable solutions can be developed for the future of a ‘smart city’ in terms of infrastructure, distribution and organization?

THE DETERMINED CITY
What are the tools and strategies required to meet both the needs of individuals and the challenges of the 21st century in a creative way and which lead to personal initiative for the benefit of the civil society? 

The competition's expert jury will be analysing the submitted projects according to the following criteria: 

• Creative quality

• Sustainability

• Potential for change

• Potential for activation

• Added value for the civil society

There are three jury prizes for the competition:  

1. prize: EUR 7,000
2. prize: EUR 5,000
3. prize: EUR 2,500

As well as one "Public’s choice award" which will be awarded by a public vote and which will win € 3,000.

The timeline for the competition is as following:

• Launch of ideas competition: April 15, 2014
• Deadline for submissions: June 18, 2014
• Public voting (for "Public Choice Award"): June 27 – July 20, 2014
• Jury meeting (For defining three jury prizes.): August 2014
• Award ceremony: September 2014

Read more about the ideas competition here and fond an English description here. 

LAGI Competition 2012: NYC Powered by Art

The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is hosting its's bi-annual design competition again in 2012 calling for a landscape art piece deeply embedded in it's genius lokus, which is stimulating people's imagination and is able to produce renewable energy.
The site for the 2012 LAGI competition is Freshkills Park at Staten Island, NYC which offers an amazing site for inspirational design ideas as the competition website describes:
"The expansiveness of the design site at Freshkills Park presents the opportunity to power the equivalent of thousands of homes with the artwork. The stunning beauty of the reclaimed landscape and the dramatic backdrop of the Manhattan skyline will provide an opportune setting from which to be inspired, and it offers the perfect environment for a showcase example of the immense potential of aesthetically interesting renewable energy installations for sustainable urban planning."

To support networked and international design teams LAGI also hosts a social networking site, the town square, which connects individuals and teams of designers, scientists, consultants etc to form teams competing in the 2012 LAGI competition.

So all factors, wonderful site, exciting brief as well as supportive work environment are set to produce interesting proposals for the 2012 LAGI competition. The jury, also staffed with prominent designers like Bjarke Ingels or James Corner will for sure have a great time choosing the best proposals. I am curious to see how entries differ this time from the results of the 2010 LAGI competition which was located in a very different site, Dubai UAE.

'[un]restricted access' competition coming up

There is an interesting competition coming up which is hosted by Architecture for Humanity and which deals with a topic promising a very interesting complexity of the design challenge and anticipated beautiful narratives.

The competition [un]restricted access will be focusing on decommissioned military sites to be re-imagined, re-developed and re-purposed by the means of design and community guidance. There is only little information online at this point, but I suggest to the humanitarian-oriented designer to stay up to date via the website of Architecture for Humanity and await the announcement of the competition brief in October.

Meanwhile some quote from the preliminary competition brief at ONA:
" Few places on earth are void of defense infrastructure. Military bases have been identified in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide. Even Antarctica is home to at least three military installations. Built in the service of public protection, when these spaces become inactive and no longer serve their intended use, how can they be re-enlisted for civilian purposes?
This year marks a milestone: In the United States alone more than 235 military sites are scheduled for closure or realignment. The U.S. military is under orders to downsize 5% of its entire infrastructure on or before September 15, 2011 in accordance with the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) ruling. The ruling will force the relocation of more than 125,000 military personnel and their families.
Base closures have a huge adverse affect on the surrounding community. In addition to complex environmental remediation, civilians must address the consequences of unemployment and disinvestment. According to the final report submitted to the President of the United States, BRAC estimates that 12 million square feet of leased space will be vacated resulting in the loss of an estimated 18,000 civilian jobs in this round of closures alone. Interestingly, many of these same sites are for sale.
Decommissioned military sites have tremendous potential if impediments to access can be overcome. This open, international competition will invite designers to identify an inactive military installation in or near their community and develop a design concept and plan for it’s remediation and re-use. "

I am curious about the proceedings of the competition and about which sites will be put forward and their associated design challenges and approaches. In a broader context this competition is a small but inspiring step of how a post-militarized society could be organized. One first question coming up to a designer's mind nowadays is:  Who pays for the cleanup in such cases? And: Who is interested to invest in former military sites?
The competition will also bring some opportunity for designers to engage in some serious brownfield romantics during their site visits. Here some images of military brownfield sites as an appetizer.

Taichikawa air force base, Japan. Image source and copyright: Michael John Grist.

Decommissioned air force base in Fuchu, Japan. Image source and copyright: Michael John Grist.

Decommissioned TITAN 1 missile silo in Denver, Colorado. Landscape view with unimaginable amount of hidden underground space.  Image source and copyright: Steven Duncan @ undercity

Decommissioned TITAN 1 missile silo in Denver, Colorado. Antennae room with purposeless(?!) infrastructure. Image source and copyright: Steven Duncan @ undercity

But not all sites may be as decomposed as the ones above. Lets suppose that the US military would have to decomission places such as Fort Bliss, TX or Fort Hood - entire cities in themselves - because of (lets imagine) changes in US expenditure. What to do in such a case with: the site, the people and their livelihoods, attached secondary industries?

Residential barracks at Fort Bliss, Texas. Image source and copyright: Nash inc.

Freshly built airstrip with attached infrastructure, North Fort Hood, TX. Image source: blackanthem copyright: Spc. Carl Havlik, 166th Aviation Brigade, Division West, Public Affairs.

One last question remains. If there are so many sites decommissioned and investments for military spending not being cut in any considerable way: Where do the military sites go then? This is worth thinking about when it comes to environmental and social impacts of construction of military bases, but will not be a topic of the '[un]restricted access' competition. 

ASLA Awards 2011: Call for Entries

The American Society of Landscape Architects has released their call for entries for the 2011 ASLA awards in the categories professional and student awards.

The prestigious awards are opened to professionals and students from around the world. See the web to reference winners of the 2010 ASLA professional awards and the 2010 ASLA student awards, as well as winners of previous years. This is anyway a nice resource for design ideas and successful projects. ;)