PORT, Andrew Moddrell and Christopher Marcinkoski, from Chicago and New York for their project, Carbon T.A.P. // Tunnel Algae Park. The jury of Elizabeth Diller, Cecil Balmond, Marilyn Taylor, Walter Hood, Stan Allen, and Thom Mayne was unanimous in its decision citing two primary qualities: The floating, carbon-capturing bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan would be an index for the otherwise invisible tunnel below, and the periodic rotation of the parkway across the river had the power to reshape the image of the city.
In addition to the professional prize, the jury selected two first-prize winners from among the student finalists: R_Ignite by four graduate students of the Manchester School of Architecture – Peter Millar, Jamie Potter, Andy Wilde and Stuart Wheeler, and Aquaculture Canal_New Orleans by Fadi Masoud, a Master of Landscape Architecture student from the University of Toronto. From the recycling of ships and oil rigs to create vital port districts, to a New Orleans aquaculture canal, the jury noted that the winning submissions were ideal as a pair, representing the range of innovative ideas relevant to WPA2.0.
In his keynote address, White House Director of Urban Affairs, Adolfo Carrion, praised all the finalists for imaginatively engaging the future of American cities. His words were echoed by HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims who called on designers to “Take us places where we have never gone before.” cityLAB at UCLA is committed to doing just that, so stay tuned for new collaborations among universities, professionals, and policymakers in federal government who will devise WPA 2.1 and beyond.
Animations by the finalists, along with more information on the winning schemes, the symposium, and WPA 2.0’s prospects will be available shortly at www.WPA2.aud.ucla.edu
WPA 2.0 SYMPOSIUM at The National Building Museum
401 F Street NW Washington, DC 20001 – Red Line Metro, Judiciary Square
November 16th – 10 AM to 6 PM
SCHEDULE of events:
Keynote: Ron Sims
Deputy Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development
Presentations by the six WPA 2.0 finalists
Keynote: Adolfo Carrion
Director, Office of Urban Affairs
Jury Discussion with
Stan Allen, Cecil Balmond, Elizabeth Diller,
Walter Hood, Thom Mayne, and Marilyn Taylor
Policymaker Panel with
Julia Anastasio, American Public Works Association (invited)
Casey Jones, GSA Design Excellence Program
Maurice Cox, NEA
David Burney, NYC Department of Design and Construction
Moderator: Bill Menking, Publisher, The Architect’s Newspaper
followed by the Announcement of WPA 2.0 and WPA 2.0 (SE) Winners
Full Day non-National Building Museum Members $100 lunch and reception included
Full Day National Building Museum Members $90 lunch and reception included
Full Day Student Registration $60 lunch and reception included
Half-Day Professional Registration $60 2:00 – 6:00pm reception included
WORLD LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT is not involved with this Event please contact WPA 2.0 organisers
cityLAB (UCLA) announces finalists for “WPA 2.0: Working Public Architecture.” WPA 2.0 an open competition that seeks innovative, implementable proposals to place infrastructure at the heart of rebuilding our cities during this next era of metropolitan recovery. The finalists include an Urban Algae: Speculation and Optimization Mining Existing Infrastructure for Lost Efficiencies, Coupling Infrastructures: Water Economies/Ecologies, Border Wall as Infrastructure, 1,000,000,000 Global Water Refugees.
P1014 Urban Algae: Speculation and Optimization
Mining Existing Infrastructure for Lost Efficiencies
Proposal location: applicable nationwide to tollbooths, coal-fired power plants, automobile tunnels and other locations of CO2 production; main sample project is a Brooklyn to Manhattan pier/bridge armature
Primary issues: This proposal seeks to turn negative byproducts of auto use and coal-fired energy (CO2) into ecological, economic, and social opportunities. Three site types are targeted – toll booths, coal-fired power plants, and automobile tunnels. The team’s design for a pivoting, pier-like, armature between Red Hook, Brooklyn and the Battery in Lower Manhattan not only captures the CO2 from the underwater auto tunnel, encouraging photosynthesis and alternative fuel production using algae pontoons, but also creates new public spaces (swimming pools, boardwalks, and plazas) and new locations for ecological or agricultural development including controlled wetlands and fish habitats.
P1117 Coupling Infrastructures: Water Economies/Ecologies
Proposal location: case studies include Salton Sea, Mono Lake, and Owens Lake in California and Pyramid Lake in Nevada yet proposal is applicable to numerous locations, particularly in the southwest.
Primary issues: This proposal focuses on America’s impending water crisis, particularly in cities in the southwest where growth is high and water availability is limited, by rethinking water use, distribution, and storage. Using the Salton Sea as a model site, the proposal envisions “converting the Sea back to its recreational use while allowing multiple economic opportunities for the production of water, salt, and more efficient greenhouses.” Here “infrastructure [becomes] an extension of nature.” Island pods provide for salt harvesting, recreation, and new animal habitats.
P1145 Border Wall as Infrastructure Proposal location: US/Mexico border
Primary issues: “[T]here exists far more potential in a construction project that is estimated to cost up to $1,325.75 per linear foot.” Recognizing the high cost, limited effectiveness and unintended natural consequences of the new, multi-layered US/Mexico border wall (disruption of animal habitats, diversion of water runoff that has caused new flooding in nearby towns), this proposal names 30 alternatives (covering nearly the whole of the Mexican alphabet, literally from Aqueduct wall to Zen wall) that might better combat the energy crisis, risk of death from dehydration, disruption of animal habitat, loss of vegetation, negative labor relations, missing creative vision and lack of cross-cultural appreciation likely in the government sponsored version.
Ronald Rael, Oakland, CA; Virginia San Fratello, Oakland, CA; Emily Licht, Oakland, CA;
P1155 1,000,000,000 Global Water Refugees
Proposal location: Great Lakes Region
Primary issues: Combining the rust belts’ loss of population with its abundance of fresh water, this proposal outlines a strategy for redensification of under-utilized post-industrial landscapes (parts of Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland) by relocating populations threatened by water scarcity.
Martin Felsen, Chicago, IL; Sarah Dunn, Chicago, IL; Lee Greenberg, Chicago, IL; Jeff Macias, Chicago, IL;
P1168 HYDRO-GENIC CITY, 2020
Proposal location: Los Angeles, with other possible urban applications
Primary Issues: Through the development of integrated, ecologically sensitive, and aesthetically compelling architecture, this proposal seeks to turn the often mechanistic infrastructural system of LA – in this case, the waterworks – into an interactive and sensory series of public nodes. As mist platforms/light rail stations, urban beaches, energy producing water treatment plants, solar-panel encased water towers, pools, and aquatic parking lots, these water-based landscapes become organizational moments for community building.
TEAM: Darina Zlateva and Takuma Ono
Darina Zlateva Los Angeles, CA; Takuma Ono, Beverly Hills, CA;
P2001 Local Code: Healing the Interstitial Landscape
Proposal location: San Francisco, with secondary applications, per the proposal, in New Orleans, Seattle, and New York City
Primary issues: Tapping into the Department of Public Works catalogue of San Francisco’s “unaccepted streets” (those no longer maintained by the city and hence neglected and often impassable), this proposal utilizes various computer models and statistical data to determine and propose new public, park-based uses for these interstitial spaces. Over 1600 of these sites are available, a selection of which are analyzed for the proposal in terms of elevation and topography, microclimate, soil type, hydrology, population density and demographics, economics, crime, and existing networks to determine the most parametrically appropriate transformation of use.
Nicholas de Monchaux, Berkley, CA; David Lung, Berkley, CA; Matt Smith, Berkley, CA; Sara Jensen, Berkley, CA; Thomas Pullman, Berkley, CA; Kimiko Ryokai, Berkley, CA; Benjamin Golder, Berkley, CA; Son Nguyen, Berkley, CA;
WPA 2.0 is a design competition organised by UCLA think tank, cityLAB, to see “who rules the sewers rules the city”
Organizers Dana Cuff and Roger Sherman are betting that recent projects like the High Line in New York (an abandoned elevated railway, now a public park) will trigger a creative range of submissions from all over the U.S. “In every city there are planners and architects who are imagining more robust ways to revitalize local infrastructure. We want to give them a forum, to spark the kinds of projects that will serve communities.
With the Recovery Act (aka the Stimulus Package), on the minds of everyone concerned with the future of our cities, cityLAB, a UCLA urban design think tank, is providing a unique opportunity for designers worldwide to contribute infrastructure proposals that re-envision the new American metropolis. Beginning with a competition that encourages designers to “take back the streets,” WPA 2.0 sets the stage for a new generation of Working Public Architecture.
The competition will be followed by a symposium at the National Building Museum in November 2009. In Washington, cityLAB will convene leading researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers to expand the enlivened discourse on urban infrastructure and promote implementable options that imagine our physical environment as more livable, more beautiful, and more sustainable.
Remember to register by Friday 24th July to find out more about the competition go to the website
