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Blank Space: The Latest Architecture and News

Outer Space 2020 Winners Announced

Blank Space has announced the winners of the second annual Outer Space competition. The competition asked architects and designers to leverage real scientific advances in robotics, AI, rocketry and autonomous spacecraft to create visions for the near future in outer space.The competition attracted thousands of participants, with winning entries showcasing narratives and images of architecture beyond the planet Earth.

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Open Call: Outer Space 2020 by Blank Space

We are on the cusp of the second great age of space exploration.

Outer space has always captured the imaginations of the public. New advances in technology (including comet landings, the Orion Spacecraft, and large scale social experiments leading to exploration of Mars) mean that outer space is no longer a place only astronauts will get to experience – but something you and I can experience within our lifetimes

For a long time, the fantastical visions of space exploration have been rooted in the scifi proposals of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Ring worlds, death stars and space colonies conjure vibrant, psychedelic

Fairy Tales Competition Announces 2020 Winners

Blank Space, the online platform has announced the winners of its annual ‘Fairy Tales’ competition. The seventh edition of the contest selected top entries that offer tales of warning and hope during uncertain times.

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Fairy Tales 2019 Winners: Top Stories Grapple With Issues Of Immigration, Sustainability, & The Future

Blank Space has announced the winners of the sixth annual ‘Fairy Tales’ competition. With submissions from over 65 countries, the award-winning entries explore current events and the creative process through wonderfully crafted short stories and artwork.

The winners were chosen by a jury of more than 20 leading architects, designers and storytellers, including Moshe Safdie, Tatiana Bilbao, Jurgen Mayer, Julia Koerner, Mark Foster Gage and Jane Yolen, among many other distinguished judges.

Check out the winning designs after the break.

Calling All Storytellers: Blank Space Launches Sixth Annual Fairy Tales Competition

Blank Space is thrilled to announce the 2019 Fairy Tales competition in partnership with ArchDaily, Archinect, Bustler, and the AIAS. The winners will be selected by a jury that includes Tatiana Bilbao, Mark Foster Gage, Jürgen Mayer and Moshe Safdie.

A Tale of Misplaced Trust in News Media Wins 2018 Fairy Tales Competition

Blank Space, in collaboration with The National Building Museum, has announced winners of their fifth annual Fairy Tales competition, unveiled in front of a live audience at the Washington D.C. National Building Museum. The competition saw submissions from 65 countries, with 3 prize winners, a runner-up, and 9 honorable mentions chosen for their exploration of current events and the creative process through well-crafted short stories and artwork. The winners were chosen by a jury of 20 leading architects, including Daniel Libeskind, Bjarke Ingels, and Maria Aiolova.

The Driverless Future Challenge's Winning Entry Uses Plug-and-Play System to Reclaim Public Space for Pedestrians

Of the four finalists selected for Blank Space’s “Driverless Future Challenge”, which was announced last month, “Public Square” has emerged as the winning entry, with a plug-and-play scheme to transform New York’s public realm for its streets and pedestrians. Designed by FXFOWLE and Sam Schwartz Engineering, the proposal was selected by a panel of New York City commissioners, for its response to the competition brief with a flexible system that accommodates a variety of public space typologies, while creating a harmonious coexistence between pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles.

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4 Teams Selected to Envision the Future of Autonomous Transit in NYC

Four teams have been selected as finalists in the “Driverless Future Challenge.” Organized by Blank Space with the City of New York and NY Tech Meetup, the competition asked teams to envision future strategies for implementation of autonomous transit in New York City.

Participants were tasked with evaluating the future of autonomous transportation through the four principles outlined by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s OneNYC initiative:

  • Growth - Improve city infrastructure, modulate traffic, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, eliminate traffic lights, autonomous deliveries.
  • Equity - Making sure all citizens benefit from autonomous technology, focusing on accessibility, focusing on transit deserts, creating new jobs.
  • Sustainability - Reduce need for parking, curbing emissions, increase carpooling, introducing micro-transit, new green spaces and bike lanes, renewable energy sources.
  • Resilience - A more durable and safer transit system, reducing drunk driving, “Vision Zero,” pedestrian-first, faster emergency services.

Entries were received from more than 25 countries, proposing ideas for everything from driverless food carts and a fully-autonomous MTA transit system, to enhanced use of NYC’s 311 system as a driverless dispatching center, to Link NYC Wifi stations that become stops for autonomous micro-buses. The four finalist teams were selected by a multidisciplinary jury featuring top architects including Jeffrey Inaba (Inaba Williams), Odile Decq (Studio Odile Decq) and Jürgen Mayer H. (J. MAYER H.).

The four finalists include:

Call for Submissions: DRIVERLESS FUTURE

The Driverless Future challenge seeks proposals that actively shape NYC’s response to driverless technology - will offer resources to help finalists transform their proposals into real companies and products.

Blank Space is proud to announce the Driverless Future challenge, a global competition to shape the impact of autonomous transportation in NYC, with a prize purse worth over $60,000 for the 4 top teams. The focus of the challenge is not on the cars themselves, but everything else: from parking solutions, to mass transit, accessibility, shipping, logistics, software, services, and new uses of roadways, intersections, and sidewalks. The primary goal is to create a launchpad for entrepreneurs, innovators, designers, engineers, architects and futurists to enact real change in New York City.

Environmental Fable Set in Sci-Fi Landscapes Wins 2017 Fairy Tales Competition

Yesterday evening, in a ceremony at the National Building Museum in Washington DC, Blank Space announced the winners of their annual Fairy Tales competition. Representing the best the architectural imagination has to offer were 4 winners and 10 honorable mentions, selected by a jury of high-profile judges including Dan Wood, Michel Rojkind, Marion Weiss, and Stefano Boeri, among many more.

“The winning entries in this year’s competition include oblique references to current events, mundane daily activities and human emotions that we all easily relate to—they make visible how we shape space, and in turn, how space shapes us,” said Executive Director of the National Building Museum and jury member Chase W Rynd. “The images and narratives are so wildly outlandish, and yet, so grounded that it seems like we could mistakenly stumble into any of them.”

The winning entry this year went to Mykhailo Ponomarenko, a Ukrainian architect whose sci-fi landscapes and painterly presentation provide the backdrop for a surprisingly relatable tale. Read on to find out more about this Fairy Tale, as well as the remaining 3 winners and 10 honorable mentions.

Fairy Tales 2017: Architecture Storytelling Competition

After the record breaking success of last year’s competition which drew over 1,500 participants from 67 countries, Blank Space is excited to announce that the 2017 edition is open for registration. Now in its fourth year, Fairy Tales is the largest annual architectural competition in the world.

Blank Space is proud to partner with the National Building Museum and the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) along with Archdaily, Archinect, Bustler and Design-Milk. The competition will be capped with a special celebration at the National Building Museum in February 2017 for all winners, participants, jurors and VIPs.

Olson Kundig Take Home Top Honors in 2016 Fairy Tales Competition

Blank Space has announced three winners and ten honorable mentions in their third Fairy Tales Competition. This year's contest drew entries from more than 1,500 participants from 67 countries. Everyone from students to academics and notable studios and designers submitted detailed stories and beautiful visuals for their submissions. The winners were chosen by an interdisciplinary jury of distinguished judges including Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of the Serpentine Galleries; Elizabeth Diller, founding partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and ArchDaily’s own Becky Quintal, Executive Editor; and David Basulto, Founder and Editor in Chief.

Dear Architecture: Letters on Love, Apologies and Gratuitous Selfies

"Dear Architecture," writes Craig L. Wilkins, "I’ve been wondering why you don’t speak to me. Is it because you don’t see me? Are you ignoring me? Maybe it’s because you really don’t care for me; but whatever it is, you sure don’t. Speak, that is. At least, not to me." In his winning entry to 'Dear Architecture', a competition initiated by Blank Space (of Fairytale fame), Wilkins describes misgivings through the lens of a disenfranchised city dweller, illustrating a missed connection felt by one resident towards his surroundings.

Fairy Tales 2016: Architecture Storytelling Competition

After the record breaking success of Fairy Tales 2015, with over 1,200 participants from 65 different countries, Blank Space is excited to announce that the third edition of the competition is now open for registration.

Blank Space Announces Winners of "Dear Architecture" Letter Competition

Blank Space has announced the winners of its “Dear Architecture” competition, which called designers and architects from around the world to address architecture, as a concept, in a letter of no more than 500 words and one image.

The contest was reviewed by a 17-person jury, including Fernando Romero, Diana Balmori, and ArchDaily’s co-founder David Basulto and executive editor Becky Quintal. The work of the three winners, who were awarded a total of $3,000, as well as 12 honorable mentions will be published in Blank Space’s third book, also called Dear Architecture.

Read on to see the three winners.

Beautifully Banal: Kickstarter Campaign Seeks to Celebrate Beauty in the Ordinary

A competition proposal by Alexander Culler and Danny Travis, placed second in Blank Space's recent Fairy Tales competition, is now the subject of a Kickstarter campaign asking whether there is "a way to use architectural drawing to tell a story that was easy enough for everyone to understand?" The team behind the Beautifully Banal comic-zine are now seeking to transform their competition entry into a full-scale publication in order to "combine the intricacies of architectural drawing types with a form of story telling that allows those outside of the field to gain a new appreciation for the buildings and structures that occupy the world."

Open Call: Dear Architecture

Blank Space has launched "Dear Architecture" - an open competition that explores one of the most important communication tools of all time ­ the simple letter. Designers and architects worldwide are invited to address architecture, as a concept, as a social practice, and as a community, in no more than 500 words, and with an illustration as an auxiliary tool to convey the message.

4 Fantastical Projects Take Top Honors in 2015 Fairy Tales Competition

The 2015 Fairy Tales competition, hosted by Blank Space, has drawn to a close with four winners and 11 honorable mentions emerging victorious. Now in its second year, the competition attracted over 1,200 entries from 65 countries and challenged participants in a number of fields to design architectural projects inspired and accompanied by fictional stories.

Check out the winning designs after the break.

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