KCAP wins Keqiao Water City competition in Shaoxing, China

Masterplan

KCAP Architects & Planners has won the international competition to design a masterplan for Keqiao Water City in Shaoxing, China. The 45 ha site, which is currently occupied by redundant textile industry and residences, will be redeveloped for residential use with community functions and sport and commercial facilities in a landscaped setting of waterland, parks and gardens. KCAP’s masterplan design has been chosen as winner out of 3 international entries.

Keqiao is the major development area of Zhejiang province, occupying a strategic location between Shaoxing, a city of 3 million inhabitants, and Hangzhou, close to Xaoshan airport and along the highway to larger local cities and further to Shanghai. With its unique landscape of lakes, canals and rocks it forms a setting of scenic beauty. The area will become a recreational centre and will give new development impulses for the entire region.

KCAP’s masterplan introduces a landscape framework formed by different conditions found on the site such as the two lakes with their waterfronts, the canal and road system, the green spaces and the bridges. Enriched with carefully designed elements like public squares, parks, roads and paths a continuous landscape fabric is established which ties the entire development together.

KCAP will elaborate the winning masterplan scheme throughout 2010 in close cooperation with Shaoxing developer Gemdale and the local authorities. The first projects are estimated to start construction in 2011. ‘Working on this project is a great opportunity for us. It is an important stepping stone for our growing portfolio in China,’ says Markus Appenzeller, director of international projects of KCAP.

[SOURCE: KCAP]

[IMAGES SOURCE: KCAP]

[IMAGES CREDIT: Li Fang]

The 21st century is the century of landscape architecture: David Rubin

Recently on the Urban Design Podcast, David Rubin a partner at Olin was interviewed in which

David Rubin asserts that the twenty-first century is a century of landscape architecture, while the twentieth century was about architecture. His argument is that landscape architects are building spaces for society and forming human interaction.

Urban Design Podcast is a great weekly podcast that started in fall of 2009 by Arina Habich who is an urban designer with over 10 years of experience who saw a need for professionals around the world to share their experiences and learn about each other’s work in a more convenient way. A new 30 minute podcast episode is released for download on iTunes and the website each Wednesday.
[SOURCE: Urban Design Podcast]

Winners Announced in Surrey’s Town Centres Design Competition

1st Prize & Overall prize for Guildford: Return of Ritual;Team: Renante Go-Soco Solivar

“TownShift: Suburb Into City” sponsored by the City of Surrey was a sustainable design competition to provide vision for Surrey’s five growing town centres – Cloverdale, Fleetwood, Guildford, Newton and Semiahmoo.

The competition attracted 138 submissions from 20 countries, and 27 finalists were selected by the five-member TownShift jury.

Renate Solivar of Vancouver took the overall top prize of $15,000 for his entry “Return of Ritual” which proposes structuring a new bold, brightly coloured construction along 152nd Street in front of Guildford Mall. In addition to the $15,000 first prize, his entry also won $10,000 for first prize in the Guildford category, for total winnings of $25,000.

All 27 have been on public display at Simon Fraser University (SFU) Surrey Central City for the past three weeks, and will remain on display until Feb 28th, the closing day of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

The next steps in taking new ideas and making them into reality will be explored at a special panel discussion entitled “Where Do We Go From Here?” at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s main Surrey Campus on Monday, March 29, 2010 at 7:00PM.

Cloverdale Winning Design: Surrey Crossing — Crossing Surrey; Team: Fang Liu; Tracey Mactavish; Henning Knoetzele; Peeroj Thakr

SOURCE: Townshift
IMAGES SOURCE: Townshift

For the full list of winners

Continue reading Winners Announced in Surrey’s Town Centres Design Competition

New Dean at University of Calgary

Nancy Pollock-Ellwand has been appointed Dean of Faculty of Environmental Design (EVDS) at the University of Calgary. Recently, she was the chair of the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, at the University of Adelaide, Australia for the past three years. A graduate in architecture from the University of Manitoba and graduate in landscape architecture from Guelph University and she received her PhD in Planning at the University of Waterloo.

In her new position she wishes for students and staff to engage more with the architectural community.

[SOURCE: Calgary Herald - New dean passionate about architecture]

West 8 wins Gold International Urban Landscape Award

“Neues Wohnen” in Hamburg-Jenfeld has been awarded the Golf Award in this year’s International Urban Landscape Award (IULA). The ecological neighbourhood project, which was submitted by West 8 urban design & landscapes architecture in Rotterdam, is the winner of the €25,000 prize.

Lea River Park in East London and The LifE Project in Hackbridge, Peterborough and Littlehamptom have been awarded the Silver and Bronze prizes.The Lea River Park Project, submitted by Design for London won €15,000 prize for second place while the LifE Project, submitted by Baca Architects won €10,000 for coming third.

In total, the quality of all 43 projects submitted was extremely high and the expert jury had to make tough decisions.

[SOURCE: Eurohypo]

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