IFHP STUDENT COMPETITION 2007 REPORT

INTRODUCTION

The IFHP Ranko Radovic Student Competition of the IFHP Congress 2007 in Copenhagen has invited students at all levels and from all disciplines related to Urban Planning, Urban Design, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urban Geography, Sociology, Anthropology, Urban Studies, Environmental Studies, Engineering, Traffic Planning or related academic fields.

The competition theme was City regions, regional cities.

Moving to the city? Or is the city moving in on you? 2007 marks a dramatic shift: Yesterday’s fields and flowers – tomorrow’s urban wildlife. For the first time in history, half of the world’s population now inhabits cities! As the urban population increases, so do the challenges facing urban life.

Competition questions
Which challenges do you expect to have the greatest impact on the cityscape, on the countryside, on the built environment, on where you live, study, and pursue your dreams?

What agenda, environment, site or scale do you consider most important to the theme “Futures of Cities”?

What implementations would you like to see? What plans and building programs do you propose for the Futures of Cities?

Where will you be in 2030? Where will the rest of the world be?

The competition has been a worldwide call for proposals for implementations securing the Futures of Cities on all levels and scales, from the globalized city, the buildings that constitute cities, to the individual housing unit, to the quality of the urban realm which binds the city together.

The futures of cities have been addressed in various categories. Traditionally speaking IFHP encompasses housing and planning. Here the scope has been expanded to the following four categories of intervention: planning, building, housing and urban quality.
We have called upon the competition teams to address a single level or transverse several categories of intervention, which they consider to be the most crucial to the futures of cities:

Planning
Is it master plans or major infrastructure that defines our cities?
With the majority of the world’s population having made the move to the city, not only do we need to plan for urban growth, there is likewise a need to plan for the decline being experienced elsewhere. Nor can we strictly speak of people migrating to city centres, rather growing urban populations are occupying all sorts of in between spaces. The urban world is no longer one of clearly defined cities as unique entities; rather it is evermore a network of cities and regions, giving way to city regions, mega cities and megalopolises. What plans do you propose for the futures of our cities? How are we to bridge cities and regions? How are we to structure our infrastructure, transportation, water, energy, sanitation?
Work, life and play, and how are we to move around into between the three?

Building
Is it the urban fabric or individual buildings that define our cities?
Many cities are pursuing to position themselves through buildings of high architectonic profile: awe inspiring architecture, innovations in building technology, green building, experimental housing or public works. The parameters vary from city to city, region to region, place to place. How can good architecture secure the futures of cities? What can you propose as a best building practice?

Housing
Is it the housing or the occupants they are home to that define our cities?
Where and how is the majority of the world’s population going to live? It is not merely a matter of providing housing machines, but rather housing solutions? How do you propose to house the growing numbers of urban dwellers? What kind of solutions do you have in mind for affordable housing or high-residential: High density living? Sustainable lifestyles? Small-scale communities in large-scale cities?

Urban Quality
Is it the physical surroundings or the life within that defines urban quality?
Urban quality has become one of the most important parameters for the positioning of cities in on the global playfield. The interplay between a city’s spaces and its urban life is considered to be a prerequisite for a city’s urban quality. It is the spaces of the city that offer corridors of mobility, areas for public art, patches where gardens can grow, arenas for sports and recreation, places where people can meet. This and much more are makes for the quality of urban life. How do you propose to accommodate life and recreation on the street? Urban ecology? Forums for democracy in an expanding urban world?


There has been no given site or scale in the competition. Instead, each team had the opportunity to select, identify and work on a site and scale that they have found most relevant to a particular problem or condition. In other words competitors have been asked to name and illustrate the site and scale they are addressing - to describe what city or neighbourhood, street or building lot, traffic interchange, square, housing block or unit that has been serving as the context for the design proposal.

193 projects from 35 countries around the world have been delivered, all of which have been judged and all are being exhibited in public at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture.

Competition jury
The international competition jury consisted of five members from different countries, some appointed by IFHP and the others appointed by IFHP 2007 Copenhagen:

• Professor Malachy McEldowney, Queen's University, Belfast, UK
• Professor Nachio Torisu, Japan
• Architect Henrik Valeur, UID, Denmark
• Adjunkt Professor Jørgen Nue Møller,Copenhagen,Denmark
• Associate Professor, Peder Duelund Mortensen, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark

Jury President
Professor Malachy McEldowney

Competition host
Associate Professor Peder Duelund Mortensen

Secretary
Rasmus Jakobsen

Criteria
The following criteria have been used in the judgment:

• Quality of concept, originality and coherence in the process from analyse to case and proposal
• Architectural quality, coherence of scales, quality of expression and realism
• Presentation, clarity in writing and visualizations

Awards
The total award sum was 100.000 EUR / 750.000 DKK covering cash awards, travel and lodging for the winning teams to attend the Futures of Cities 2007 Copenhagen Student Congress and congress fee waivers.

GENERAL COMMENTS OF THE JURY

This year’s competition has been an outstanding success in terms of the record number of entries - 193 received - and the range, quality and ambition of the student submissions. This is a very positive reflection on the excellent promotion and organisation of the event carried out by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture under Professor Peder Duelund Mortensen and his team. There were submissions from 35 countries and from most continents, and underlying the very comprehensive range of subjects addressed there was both a strong ‘sustainability’ theme and a refreshing innovatory approach.

As would be expected with the urban theme of the Competition, there was a strong representation of residential designs, particularly high-density urban regeneration schemes with an environmental sustainability objective. Many such schemes focused on waterside locations, with the exploitation and development of water regimes and seascapes, in particularly imaginative ways, a dominant theme in the submissions. Urban landscapes were also well represented, with some futuristic ideas for the achievement of new green space on top of high density structures, or functional space underground. Educational buildings were less common, although there were some particularly well-designed schools, and retailing and commercial functions were generally parts of larger multi-functional projects. ‘One-off’, individual buildings such as museums, galleries and entertainment facilities were represented by some imaginative designs, and transport interchange facilities were also common – reflecting the students’ perceptions of the need for more sustainable transport modes in future.

The urban future is the basic theme of the competition, and many of the submissions were certainly ‘futuristic’ in their imagination, if somewhat questionable in their feasibility. Achieving a balance between these requirements was something that the Jury was seeking in the submissions, and it is well represented in the more successful schemes. There was probably a stronger emphasis on architectural exuberance than on planning analysis in this year’s submissions, although the laudable tradition of painstaking contextual analysis, as part of a sequential design process, was still evident in Japanese and Malaysian schemes, for example.

Presentation standards continue to rise, with the opportunities presented by computer-aided design and graphical techniques fully exploited. Very few traditional architectural drawings or sketches are now submitted, which is regrettable, and there was explicit evidence of the presentation style dominating the design substance in a few cases. Some submissions, in fact, were very beautifully-presented posters, rather than substantive design proposals. The Jury was sympathetic towards some of these, but in general was looking for a comprehensive design product as well as imaginative presentation. In some cases the message of the submission was obscured by over-elaborate graphical self-indulgence.

A final observation on the competition entries this year was the predominance of ‘doomsday’ scenarios in the design messages. The need to construct ‘lifeboat’ structures or catastrophe shelters were commonly perceived, as, indeed, was the need to provide for immigrant or homeless housing and ‘shanty-town’ accommodation. The latter is a positive reflection on the social idealism of student competitors and the former a salutory reminder of the fragile environmental context in which they will pursue their design careers. Both messages are important for an international audience.

PRIZE WINNERS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

First prize:

147
TRAWLING CITY
By Jonathan Nestler and André Schmid
Tutor: Uwe Brederlau
Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany

The project is reacting on the coming severe climate changes resulting from global warming. It presents a doom day scenario, where the Gulf Stream is stopped, temperature in certain regions of the world is increasing and the sea water level is dramatically raised due to the melting of the polar and mountain ice. The consequence is flooded coastlines and whole countries, among these some of the densest populated bay areas of the world.

The concept of the counter act to this scenario is based on civic cooperation, mobility and high technology: ‘City plants’ are constructed to float on the rising sea like enormous Noah’s Arches, containing huge urban societies. The architecture is inventive and convincing due to the scale and the integration of functions. The traditional urban forms are questioned – private-public, indoor-outdoor, solids-voids, place-no place - and new spatial types and relations are developed.

Natural power is gained from wind, sun and underwater rotors. The city is transformed into a ‘plant’ of autonomy and sustainability.

If the city ‘plant’ can sail and stand the storms of the open sea is not sure, but the analysis is clear, the vision striking and the presentation impressive in it’s richness of details and tactility.


Third prizes:

37
DE’WEB PLANE NEIGHBOURHOOD 2030 - TRADITION KEPT ALIVE
By Yew Wooi Seng, Nur Adlina Binti Fawzi, Asmah Binti Basherudin, Chairul Anam Bin Muquimun and Muhd Mustakim Kadi Bin Kahmat
Tutor: Wan Mohd Zakri Wan Abdullah
University of Technology, Johor, Malaysia

The focus is on shrinking or slowly growing cities in the regional edges far from the exploding metropolis – in this case Singapore. The site is a fisherman village and local centre with estimated 50.000 people in 2030. The architectural heritage of the city and functional complexity is threatened by the creation of new mono functional mega structures.

The problems and alternative possibilities are carefully analysed in the project and a plan is developed integrating existing cultural buildings and service with housing and workshops. The pressure of the private traffic is reduced by a public transportation network. The development is realistic phased and looks economically feasible.

The buildings fit to the river landscape and opens for views and access to the coast line. Finally the small scale and structural openness of the traditional building culture is reinvented into a modern building form suited for prefabrication. The project is the result of a very coherent design process, and is very clear presented.

128
RELOAD THE FLOATING CITY
By Campos Alvarado José Leandro, Dominguez Joselyn Alicia, Lozano Carbajal José Salvador, Monroy Torres Israel and Tous Pavon Erika
Tutor: Jose Angel Campos Salgado
Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Unidad Xochimilco, Mexico

The growing population followed by densification, streamlining of urban space and use of ‘left-over’ spaces in the metropolis is a relevant answer to the need for a more sustainable city. But it is also stressing the city, a threat to cultural values and identity - and becomes often points of conflicts between groups and interests.

In this project a site of major cultural importance in the Mexico City region is pointed out - Xochimilco, and a restructuring process is presented. Here remain only smaller parts of the old ‘chinampas’, a sown field edged with trees on a piece of land - floating on water. In between the floating pieces of land are canals used for transportation. The project is recovering the old lake and forms a new floating environment of urban public spaces and buildings dedicated to music and performing arts. An urban landscape, the water and lines of public transportation is linking up the islands.

The architecture reinvents the poetry and recreational values of the ‘chinampas’, the horizontality of the cityscape and the light, transparent, colourful and flexible building structures.

The project is a fine expression for the sense of the environment and is clearly visualized in the impressive poster image and model.

157
PARIS TOUT A TOUR
By Lovisa Ohlsson, Tashy Endres and Ida Sandström
Lunds Tekniska Högskola/ Erasmus at TU-Berlin Fakultät VI Architektur, Lund/Berlin. Sweden/Germany

The growing pressure of private transport on the metropolitan city infrastructure is resulting in segregation of the public space, boarders in the physical texture, breakdowns of the public transport system and a loss of meaning. The Peripherique of Paris is one of these mega structures, we all remember and refer to.

‘Paris tout a tour’ is proposing a restructuring of this ring road no. 1 of the world, transforming it into a new Boulevard Central. With broader streets, a sky rail and a public ‘strip’, defined in content and form in dialog with the different local contexts. The boulevard is still a boarder, but extended into an area of contact, densification and liveability day and night. Les Banlieues will turn their face towards the inner city, and the network of old boulevards regains the position as integrator.

The project is impressing in scale, width and coherence in investigations and analyses, and almost obvious in conceptual strength. It seems to be realistic due to the raise of land values and building possibilities along the corridor, around the new hubs and in the adjacent suburban environment - although the need for massive public investments in new public transport and cultural functions. The presentation is clear and informative, but the images in eye level rather schematic.



Honourable mentions

30
ELEONAS OLIVE GROVE
WHEN THE PAST BECOMES THE FUTURE : THE UNFOLDMENT OF THE FUTURE CITY SCAPE
By Christina Alexopoulou, Georgia Apostolopoulou, Stela-Dania Armeni, Nikitas-Dimitrios Gavoggianis, Kosmas Gavras, Danai Diou, Ioanna Polymenea, Christos Sazos, Haris Sgouridou and Athanasia Vasdeki
Tutor: Panagiotis Tournikiotis
National Technical University of Athens, School of Architecture, Athens, Greece

Eleonas explores the city’s need for expansion and new areas of economic growth near the old city centre. An area of the size of a metropolitan park is pointed out in the middle of Athens. It is an area where gentrification and arbitrary constructions coexist with the olive tree forest and fragments of the old city’s civilization glory – the ‘Iera Oelos’ ruins. The site is considered as the last hope for the city to acquire a big, natural green core.

As the city structure actually is undergoing a dematerialization, Eleonas tries to deconstruct the typical block and redefines a new structure in a greater scale. A mountainous form is constructed on the top of the city as a continuous walk filled with public squares, open air activities and natural elements. The walkways end up in the city developed underneath. At points of information and special allocation tall buildings erect from the ground.

The architecture is concept driven and futuristic, but rather schematic and probably unrealistic, while the presentation is beautiful - a single and visual gesture includes diagrammatic analysis and explanations within a total layout.

53
BIOPOLIS
by Johan Ericsson, Helena Ahlblom and Karl Brorsson
Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, Lund, Sweden

The idea of the proposal is to create a solution to the future of mankind in one single seed. As an alternative to the existing dependency of natural resources the BIOPOLIS present the self sufficient city. It is a fusion of urban living and agriculture, inhabited high density vegetation and a genetically designed urban growth.

The BIOPOLIS is nicely presented in the poster and a model as a green structure, using DNA technology to genetically design this structure. The submission shows an analysis of how it can be done. The structure gives way to the urban plan, the housing and the agriculture in a tight knit system.

The submission is an innovative and radical approach to the theme of the competition.

61
TEXTILE HOUSE INTEGRATED WITH RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURE IN PORTO
by Pernille Birkel
Tutor: Camilla Hedegaard-Møller
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Department 2, Copenhagen, Denmark

The purpose of the submission is a study of how a residential structure can benefit from being part of a public function.

The site is in Porto in Portugal, situated in the outskirts of the city centre, where the city edge meets the sloop of the river and the landscape, a dense area dominated by small scale industries and traditional housing buildings. The submission analyses the site and places a textile house, which is a combined small scale production facility and education centre, integrated with housing into the existing urban fabric. The textile is also the starting point of the analysis, as textile plays an important role for the residence structures in Porto.

The poster, three models and a booklet present the architectural idea of a building, where the public, the semi public and the residential functions are weaved together in a beautiful way.

69
A MICRO COMMUNITY SOLVING GLOBAL PROBLEMS
by Bernando Araujo, Èder Andrés Barrientos Leite, Isabel Caldeira Brant, Mateus Andreatta Barros and Thiago de Campos
Tutor: Maria Lucia Malard
Escola de Architectura, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil

The submission is dealing with a very important problem of urban development in many countries, the shantytowns in the outskirts of the big cities, in Brazil known as favelas. The considered site is the favelas of the big city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil, where up to 10 people must live together in unstable houses of maximum 50 m2 with no access to clean water, without sewers or access to public transportation.

After a brief analysis the submission presents a strategy based on a housing solution with integration of water and sewers, which increases the density and gives new spaces to the public, a transport system based on buses, cable cars and subways, a local production of electricity and a local production of food - pigs living in vertical blocks.

The presentation is well organized and easy to understand.

99
A 50s CADILLAC AUTOMOBILE WORKING MUSEUM, HAVANA, CUBA
INSIDE THE WALLS OF HAVANAS CASTILLO DEL MIRRO
by Ka Hung Cheng (Jackson)
Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, United Kingdom

The submission deals with the creation of a working and ever expanding museum of Cadillac car from the fifties in the historical castle Castillo del Morro in Havana.
Because of the embargo the Cuban government prohibited sale of vehicles to private citizens and people had to keep and repair their old cars, so the city has a big collection of vintage cars.

The project gives a new life to the old castle and adds a new quality to the city, which will attract car lovers and tourists. The meeting between old and new and the ornamentation is analysed and described in an interesting way.

The presentation in the poster is very lively done.

176
HARBOR/HARBOR
By Wayne Congar
Tutor: Mark Wasiuta
Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, New York, United States of America

Lack of land for affordable housing, parks and free spaces is one of the common problems in the modern, growing metropolises. The result is more growth in the city edges, far from the services and transportation centres of the city cores.

Harbor/Harbor challenges this problem by reuse of salvaged commercial ships for mixed use development. Instead of exporting the ship wreaks – more than 800 every year - to other areas of the world to be broken up in pieces, they are replaced from the outer harbors and coastlines into the old and history loaded but often empty port areas of the central metropolises. The industry related to the breaking down is converted into repair and refitting of the ships. The redefined old ports inhabited by reused ships become green power plants of solar and wind energy. And they become ‘loudspeakers, broadcasting to inland’, raising the quality of life in the surrounding mixed income and complex communities.

The concept is followed up by a strong argumentation, typology and diagrammatic proposals for the architectural design.

177
THE TRANSFORMATION TOWARDS A “HAPPY VILLAGE”
PEARL RIVER DELTA, CHINA
By Katja Engel Zepernick and Anett Grønnern Olsen
Arkitektskolen Aarhus, Aarhus C, Denmark

Focus is the problems raised, when the growing cities “eats” the small villages. The view is on the value and development of micro communities. The strategy is small changes seen over time in a coordinated process, integrating general architectural values and social strengths into the restructuring.

The project is developed after 7 weeks of travelling in the Pearl River Delta, China. The cities are expanding due to economical growth and migration, while the existing villages have the quality of being low and extremely dense. The villages now offer cheap housing for the migrant workers. A qualitative restructuring of the villages can be seen as a sustainable alternative to mega projects.

The proposal is characterized by open ends and more concrete decisions regarding structure and form taken in the local neighbourhoods involving the local people and NGO’s. The project points out two important sites - the village block and the edge, and three strategic interventions – to reorganize, to add and to combine. A toolbox is formulated as a pattern language used locally to relate phases and types of transformation to social interaction.

The project is relevant, focused and well presented, although the step from tool to project is not clearly expressed, missing examples of stakeholders and architectural outcome.


Copenhagen September 21st 2007

Professor Malachy McEldowney, Queen's University, Belfast, UK, chairman of the jury

Professor Nachio Torisu, Japan

Architect Henrik Valeur, UID, Denmark

Adjunct Professor Jørgen Nue Møller, Copenhagen, Denmark

Associate Professor, Peder Duelund Mortensen, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark