Thursday, November 5, 2009

Que Sera, Surrey


If any of you have been keeping an eye on this city then you know that for a while Trevor Boddy has been insinuating that he is working on a top-secret significant competition for some time. Well - the cat's out of the bag! Inspired by Formshift in name - and more? - Townshift was announced early this week.

Trevor Boddy presenting Townshift.

The competition's prizes will total $75,000 distributed among 11 winners. There are five different design areas as challenges. I will not provide much more detail as I would be competing with an exceptionally thorough overview by the re:place magazine.

Additional good sources of info since townshift.ca is not quite useful yet:
- GlobalBC story complete with a video
- BC Local (more details specifically regarding the competition)
- “Never having to say you're Surrey” « Price Tags

The notion of addressing suburb cities in a design ideas competition is interesting, although it is not as much a design problem as it is a planning, zoning, infrastructure, and economics problem. Let's design away anyway - so that they can be prize-ponied during the Olympics and then shelved (see referenced links above) - for the glory of it all!