Competitions: The Latest Architecture and News

Archstorming have announced the winning projects of "Coexist: Rethinking Zoos," their recent competition to design a concept for the zoo of the 21^st century. The call for entries asked participants to redefine the traditional zoo and transform the space from something that is not only an exhibition of animals, but also an educational tool, and a place for research and conservation. The team of international jurors selected three winners from more than 40 countries that submitted ideas.

The site for the proposal was the zoo in Barcelona, which has committed itself to prioritizing the welfare of its animals. To promote the well-being of the animals and nature, the winning teams designed imaginative alternatives to the traditional zoo methods of interaction, such as non-intrusive paths and even 3D virtual animals. The winners show that there are new ways for visitors to understand animals that are both ecologically friendly and sustainable.

Check out the winning submissions after the break.

International master planning and architecture specialists, Benoy won the bid for Shanghai's 367,000 square meters Yuqiao Science Innovation Centre. This technological hub will work towards Shanghai's goal to be a world-class city by 2040.

Heinle, Wischer und Partner's design for a triangular shaped building has been awarded first place in a competition to design the Małopolska Science Center in Krakow, Poland. The competition brief, which called for a design which would be both iconic and innovative, was responded with a proposal by the team that creates a new landmark for the Malopolska region of Poland.

Read about their winning design after the break.

YAC – Young Architects Competitions – and the Municipality of Favignana, in cooperation with the Italian Government, launch “Art Prison”, an architectural competition to refurbish a breathtaking fortress on a scattered island in southern Sicily. A cash prize of € 20,000 will be awarded to the winners selected by an internationally-renowned featuring Daniel Libeskind (Studio Libeskind), Manuel Aires Mateus (Aires Mateus), Felix Perasso (Snøhetta), João Luís Carrilho da Graça (Carrilho da Graça Arquitectos).

Archstorming has announced the winners of their Open Ideas Competition: Mosul Postwar Camp. In the competition for architects and architecture students, the challenge was to design a social reintegration solution with essential humanitarian aid for people who return home to Mosul after the Iraq war against ISIS. The competition results proved there are many ways to revitalize the lives of displaced people through the spaces they inhabit.

Update 1/23/18: The jury for the competition has been announced as the architects arrive on site for walkthroughs.

Six star-studded teams have been shortlisted in the Adelaide Contemporary International Design Competition, which is seeking to create a new contemporary art museum and public sculpture park on a significant site near the University of Adelaide and the Adelaide Botanic Garden in Adelaide, Australia.

Selected from 107 teams made up of over 500 individual firms, the six shortlisted teams were chosen through the “outstanding quality” of their initial submissions and for the complementary strengths of each of the team members.

 “This is an extraordinarily rich list of diverse creative partnerships of architects looking to complement their talents by working with both peers and smaller talented practices. The final decision was very demanding but these are the teams that convinced us through the outstanding quality of their submissions,” said Nick Mitzevich, Director, Art Gallery of South Australia.

The second edition of the workshop organized by the School of Architecture (EA) of Universidad San Sebastián (Chile) had as main guest the Spanish architect Alberto Veiga, founding partner of Barozzi / Veiga and author of projects such as the Philharmonic Hall in Szczecin and Ribera del Duero Headquarters. In addition to engaging in a series of debates with the participants of the workshop, Veiga had a public conversation with the Chilean architect Pedro Alonso (winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale 2014) and shared the studio’s work and reflections on architecture in a master lecture.

A total of 10 teams from different schools of architecture in the country came together for the 2017 version of this initiative, reaching a total of 67 participants among students and instructors. Seeking to favor the production of projects capable of promoting debate, each day of the workshop dealt with a different topic featuring guest scholars: Ernesto Silva, director of the School of Architecture (strategies), Pedro Alonso, renowned professor and researcher (arguments) and Albert Tidy, dean of the Faculty of Architecture (materialization of the project). For the closing day, on Friday, October 13, there was a joint display with the final projects produced by the different teams (which remained open to the public for the next couple of weeks), and a camaraderie activity to celebrate both the gathering of the schools and the quality of the experience and its results.

Bee Breeders have announced the winners of the Construction Container Facelift architecture competition. The competition jury received a wide range of work, but selected proposals which were based on a realistic implementation of a novel solution, maintaining the inherent durability and functionality of the shipping containers versus altering them strictly for aesthetics.

Winning the Italian Ministry of Education's design competition: Scuole Innovative, AS.IN.O is a proposal for a kindergarten and botanical gardens inspired by local materiality and historic context. The team from aut- -aut in Italy, comprised of Gabriele Capobianco, Edoardo Capuzzo Dolcetta, Jonathan Lazar and Damiano Ranaldi, based the layout of the scheme on the typical double courtyard house typology of the Campidano Meridionale area.

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At the end of September, we invited our Spanish-speaking readers to send us their social housing proposals completed at a university level. Social housing is still a challenge for much of Latin America and although every year hundreds of architecture students work on projects that reflect their concerns in the social housing field, its visibility is very low and its materialization is null. At a time when the Global South has pursued its own responses to its own problems, the university response on social housing should be taken into account by the State, both of whom are interested in the common good.

Out of 116 proposals received from Spain and 11 Latin American countries, this selection of 20 ideas represents the different challenges and state of the problems in social housing. While some approach Colombia's post-conflict scenario for rural inhabitants, some propose answers to the insertion of social housing in already densified areas, to which the beneficiaries tend to be relegated by the value of land and housing. Other ideas point to the reconversion of infrastructure, modulation, the integration of indigenous peoples and natural disasters.

We believe that the selection not only highlights the efforts of students and academics to address contingent problems but will also open up the discussion about social housing, often relegated only as a one-dimensional problem when in reality, poverty is multidimensional.

Bee Breeders have announced the winners of the Amber Road Trekking Cabins competition for the Latvian Baltic Coast. The competition sought proposals for low impact, transient and inhabitable infrastructure to support a planned hiking network along vast topographies of the Latvian Baltic Coast. The winning projects considered the various landscape elements of the site including pine trees, dunes, and white sand beaches while responding to programmatic requirements - economy, constructability, environmental sensitivity and utilitarian function.

The competition collectively provokes reflection of ecological conservation and its prescience in contemporary cultural and social practice, serving as an economic alternative to the commercialized, industrialized landscape definitive of global capital interests.

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Dutch Firms Team RAU, SeARCH, and karres +brands have been named as one of the winners of the Inventons la Metropole de Grand Paris, the largest European competition for city planning, architecture and public space. Their project, Triango, reinvents Paris’ Triangle de Gonesse into a dynamic and lively business park which promotes sustainability in every sense of the word.

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As part of Paris School of Architecture's 2017/18 research theme, which is discussing the infrastructural implications of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, the institute has launched an international architecture competition seeking Brexit Monuments.

Michel Kozman has imagined a light-filled library for Hyde Park as part of the Archasm Hyde Park Library Competition that ran earlier this year. The competition, which attracted 378 registrations, called for “a stimulating and exciting approach towards the design of a library at Hyde Park.” The brief requested consideration be given to modern forms of media, including audiovisual and digital technologies, challenge the traditional library typology and become a zone within the park for knowledge exchange and gathering.

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Studio Gang and nAOM (Franklin Azzi Architecture / Chartier Dalix / Hardel-Lebihan Architectes) have been selected as the two finalist teams competing for the redesign of Paris’ infamous Tour Montparnasse, beating out a star-studded shortlist that included OMA, MAD Architects (China) + DGLA (France), Architecture Studio, Dominique Perrault Architecture, and PLP Architecture.

The competition asked teams to submit a vision for the tower that “not only creates a powerful, dynamic and bold new identity for the Tour Montparnasse but also addresses all the challenges involved in terms of user accessibility, comfort and energy performance.”

Architecture platform Rethinking the Future (RTF) has announced the winners for their annual “Rethinking the Future Awards,” collecting over 500 entries from 30 countries. Established in 2012 in New Delhi, India, RTF aims to create a “new window on international trends in architecture and design” by considering “radical solutions for the present day problems facing the domain.”

“Each of these projects represents the best of architecture and design across the globe, where innovation and creativity are intersecting,” says RTF on the 18 winning entries covering projects ranging from residential to cultural architecture. The competition was open to both students and professionals and drew a diverse collection of built and unbuilt works.

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