Prefab 20*20 Competition

June 15th is the deadline for the early bird registration. So... tomorrow. Hurry, this is yet another fantastic international/local opportunity to showcase your talents to the world. Blurb:

As part of LivingDensity Exhibition and Forum, and in collaboration the Architectural Institute of British Columbia, Azure Magazine, and Interior Design Show West, Architecture For Humanity Vancouver proudly presents PREFAB 20*20: Visions For 400 Square Foot Homes, An International Open Ideas Competition.

Open to all designers, architects, engineers, artists and students around the world, PREFAB 20*20 challenges you to propose a free-standing, prefab dwelling unit for a footprint no more than 400sf (37.5sm) in an urban setting anywhere in the world. Fit for two adults, its basic program shall include sleeping, bathing, cooking, living, working/studying, and storage areas. Entrants are free to deviate from the basic program but justification must be included.

Click here to learn more.

'tis the season of the tour announcements!

West Van Tour 2008 - Ron Thom's Baker Forrest House:
The ultimate wine reception destination

Yay! Tours!

Heads up came from Vancouver Lights Blog today on the big modern residential tours of Vancouver. One is organized by the West Vancouver Museum and the other by Vancouver Heritage Foundation.

The West Van one runs on July 11 and all visitors will be bused around and there is a wine reception at the end with door prizes . $100.

Vancouver Heritage has theirs on October 3, as well bus and wine here too. $100. + 4 Core LUs.

Last year's West Van tour was fantastic, I architecture-geeked out every second of it. I really recommend it . Unfortunately, I missed the other tour, but it is praised highly by Vancouver Lights.

Lastly, I have no idea as to the line up of either(other than Harbour House by Helliwell+Smith: Blue Sky Architecture is the headliner for the West Van tour), but watch this space - who knows I might be able to shed some light on this later...

International competition: Self-sufficient City

Not Vancouver-related, but fun. This landed in my inbox today and I am passing it on:

We are organizing the 3rd Advanced Architecture Contest, envisioning the habitat of the future. The aim of this international competition is to promote online discussion and research through which to generate insights and visions, ideas and proposals that help us envisage what the city and the habitat of the 21st century will be like.

The competition is open to architects, planners, designers and artists who want to contribute to progress in making the world more habitable by developing a proposal capable of responding to emerging challenges in areas such as ecology, information technology, socialization and globalization, with a view to enhancing the connected self-sufficiency of our cities.

Gursky

VAG has Andreas Gursky on now.
Go.

Winners of Where's the Square

The summer is here, the posts are few and sporadic...

A few days ago the winners of the Where's the Square competition were announced and that saga has ended. For me it was the locations that the entrants have selected, rather than the designs themselves, that determined how convinced I was of success of each entry. Many locations did not 'speak of what it means to be "Vancouver" ' (per competition brief) to me. Here is where the competition played a trick on all its ambitious entrants - unless one has selected the perfect site, the design itself seems secondary. And selecting such a site proved to be very, very, very hard indeed!

Regardless...

The jury unanimously selected an entry - this one did not even appear on the shortlist - by Mark Ashby Architecture and Greenskins Lab (Mark Ashby, Kevin King, Isabel Kunigk, and Daniel Roehr). That name would be good for a band of some sorts, too. Their entry entitled "The Band" envisioned a linear space running by the BC Place; along that space would centre various cultural institutions and the like. These institutions sequentially program a certain stretch along "the band". Unfortunately, it is VAG's new location - taken for granted, but now in peril -that determined along with GM Place the location for "the band". The band - complete with garden plots, market/cafe, farmer's market infrastructure, interactive light standards, permanent umbrellas, and a floating island - would have connected the downtown with the seawall, allowing the existing building to stay in its path thus creating "interesting programmatic tensions".

The very few and very tiny images released by VPSN :



( Dear VPSN,
Please send me bigger images!
I asked nicely earlier, and...
Nothing!
Pretty please?)



People's Choice Awards went to:
#1 - Vancouver Carpet by Hapa Collection (Joe Fry, Xenia Semeniuk, and Doron Fishman)
#2 - Waterfront Square by MPA Design ( Michael Alexander and Michael Painter)