SELECTED NEWS FEED ON COMPETITIONS
The City of Beaconsfield's competition for a new multi-functional cultural center is a multi-disciplinary architectural competition to provide the municipality with an architectural and public development project combining a library and spaces to support cultural activities. The project's construction budget is in the order of $17.3 M, plus taxes, and the total surface area of the main building is in the order of 2,700 m2.
Decoding Density
International
Registration deadline: January 19, 2024
Submissions deadline: April 3, 2024
Decoding Density is an international invitation to imagine new possibilities for six-storey plus apartment forms by addressing two of the most existential problems of today: climate change and housing affordability. Submissions will challenge the constraints of code and other regulations to do so. The six-storey wood frame apartment building is becoming a standard for municipalities in the Metro Vancouver region for increasing density. And yet, designers exploring these apartment forms find that code and other regulations, combined with financial factors, generate boxes that are not affordable, do not address climate change, and struggle to offer outdoor space, light, and cultural, communal and family-orientated features.
Participants are tasked with designing temporary winter art installations which incorporate existing lifeguard towers spaced strategically across Toronto's Kew and Woodbine beaches. The structures (not in use in the wintertime) are considered visual anchor points for the installations. As in previous years, Winter Stations intends to build 4-6 winning proposals for a six-week exhibition along the waterfront, funding permitted. While Toronto beaches are not typically as well visited in the colder seasons, Winter Stations has captured the imagination of the city. Designers can expect their designs to be well-visited and should anticipate public interaction.
The project will enable the library to be enlarged to increase its floor area and reorganize its spaces to meet the needs of the population, and the cultural center to be refurbished and enlarged to provide a professional, multidisciplinary cultural facility. There are also plans to develop new premises to accommodate creation, production and dissemination spaces for children and young people, and to pool available spaces to create better utilization and synergy between the various partners.
