Three cutting edge designs were just selected as the winners of the 2013 Burnham Prize competition, organized by the Chicago Architectural Club and Chicago Architecture Foundation, in partnership with the Chicago Department of Transportation, the Chicago Transit Authority, and the Chicago Bus Rapid Transit Steering Committee. Titled, 'NEXT STOP: Designing Chicago BRT Stations,' the competition asked participants to integrate innovative and compelling transportation design into Chicago's urban fabric. Awarded the first prize was the 'Form vs. Uniform: Generative Chicago BRT Stations' proposal by designers Hesam T. Rostami and Bahareh Atash. More images and information on the winning entries after the break.
1st Place
'Form vs. Uniform: Generative Chicago BRT Stations'
Designers: Hesam T. Rostami and Bahareh Atash
Design Team's Description: Form vs. Uniform seeks a way to meet two completely opposite desires came out of the Public Transit Rider Survey. While most of the people of Chicago preferred bus stops to be designed completely unique to each neighborhood, people with limited abilities prefer a more uniform design.
This approach uses an almost uniform functional pattern to reduce the ambiguity and extra construction and maintenance expenses, while by generating an array of forms out of different topological variation of a simple wooden surface allows to create distinct formal alternatives, tailored to each site, to preserve the vivid polyphonic culture of the city.
2nd Place
'Enthalpy'
Designers: Goi Artetxe and Elise Katharine Renwick
Design Team's Description: Chicago's relationship with the lake transforms the city throughout the year, creating a completely unique energy. Enthalpy has emerged out of the desire of extending the energy of the lake into the city, and each inland neighborhood's BRT bus stop site.
Driven by several factors our design addresses: functionality, accessibility, generation of energy, and creating a space which would easily relate to a given location. Enthalpy, or the measure of total energy of a thermodynamic system, is what inspired the idea that each bus stop could give back to the community through the use of solar panels to generate energy.
3rd Place
'BTA'
Designers: Conor O'Shea and Aneesha Dharwadker
Design Team's Description: Bus Transit Authority, BTA, is an architecturally nimble bus rapid transit strategy designed to co-evolve with Chicago’s dynamic urban ecosystem. It is a multiscalar flexible framework plan operating at the metropolitan scale, the neighborhood scale, and manifested architecturally using modular units deployable as local conditions demand. The flexibility and low cost of the architectural components are designed to be deployed based upon fluctuating economic conditions, neighborhood development, seasonal ridership, as well as single-use occasions like sporting events or political rallies.
Honorable Mentions
'Torqued Spine'
Designers: HDR Engineering, Inc.
'HALO'
Designers: RTKL Associates Inc.
'KINESIS'
Designers: Ermis Chalvatzis and Natassa Lianou
Citations
'Plug & Play'
Designers: Francesc Montosa and Marc Torrellas
'BuRT'
Designers: Perkins + Will
'Hurry Up and Slow Down'
Designers: Ann Lui and Craig Reschke
For more information about the competition and the winning entries, please visit here.
