Archinect - Features

Debates Surrounding Architectural Competitions Are Nothing New

2024-06-13T12:10:00-04:00

In the US architectural profession of the 2020s, and newfound scrutiny over workplace conditions from unpaid overtime to a poor work-life balance, architecture competitions have become the subject of debate over how the profession values itself and is valued by wider society while also ensuring public-funded projects are not exploited as avenues of cronyism. However, a reading of the past 100 years of the profession tells us that we have been here before.

The Architecture Collective KnitKnot Shows Us the Possibilities of Practice in a Hypermobile World

2018-10-16T10:15:00-04:00

KnitKnot Architecture is an international collective born out of a competition entry. The team of architects, urban planners, artists and thinkers operate on a role-based structure, constantly adapting to meet the specificities of a given project.

Though spread across the globe, the group recently moved their offices into the GSAPP Incubator at NEW INC, Columbia University's launchpad for entrepreneurship and expanded modes of practice. Beyond serving as the physical office for its members in New York, the group hopes the new digs will bring about new ways of rethinking their practice. Here, the team talks about how they met, the recent move, and their unique working methodology.

How 6 Successful Women in Architecture, Planning, and Engineering Joined Forces to Win "The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition"

2018-02-19T15:48:00-05:00

The VeloCity team met through PedElle, a charity cycling endurance event open to female riders working in the property industry. Each successful in their own right, they decided they wanted to work together combining their expertise in architecture, design, engineering and town planning - a place-making competition developing the corridor that spans Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Oxford, seemed the perfect opportunity.

I recently met with the team to find out more about how they work together collaboratively and what made their entry stand out. Since we met they have gone on to win the 'The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition', cementing their exciting future working together.

Announcing the winners of Archinect UK Portfolio Competition 2017!

2017-07-27T04:09:00-04:00

Earlier this year, we launched the UK portfolio competition to celebrate and expose the wealth of fantastic work already up on Archinect as well as to encourage individuals not registered to upload and share their work with our global online community.

Stirling Prize shortlist 2017 predictions

2017-07-18T05:57:00-04:00

Later this week, the RIBA will announce which projects have made it onto the 2017 Stirling Prize shortlist.

It’s rare that the very best buildings make the shortlist. It's normally a conservative list of projects which often fail to push boundaries in architectural thinking but would get the populist vote.

Upping the ante: the high and low culture of architecture competitions

2016-08-31T12:05:00-04:00

Entering an architecture competition is basically a form of speculative investment. Time is money, and competitions tend to require a lot of both. Models, renders, and prints—not to mention wages—can deplete the coffer quickly, especially for a young practice. A studio will invest their time and money in an entry in the hope that, at a later date, it will generate a return: a commission or some recognition. Unfortunately, competitions tend to be risky investments.

And the winners of Archinect's Dry Futures competition, "Pragmatic" category, are...

2015-09-16T14:00:00-04:00

As much of the US is put through a record heatwave and the drought in California staggers on, jurors for Archinect's Dry Futures competition have been sweating through the entries to find which proposals will prevail. After reviewing the many submissions, and discussing them at length, the winners have been selected!

And the winners of Archinect's Dry Futures competition, "Speculative" category, are...

2015-09-16T14:00:00-04:00

Even with an epic El Niño expected to appear on the horizon, California remains locked in its severe and historic drought. But while water may be scarce in the country's largest economy, provocative and thoughtful submissions to Archinect's Dry Futures competition weren't.

Screen/Print #24: Architectural fantasies from "Fairy Tales — When Architecture Tells A Story"

2014-09-03T15:41:00-04:00

A good fairy tale, like good architecture, makes fantasy inhabitable. It provides a foundation for the reader to stand on, and then let’s them loose to fill in the rest with their own experiences, making a universal structure personal. But sometimes, when architects try to tell the story of their world-building to others, they rely on too exclusive of a foundation. Fairy Tales — When Architecture Tells A Story, a collection of fantastical stories written and designed by architects, tries to make that foundation more accessible.

Student Works: Martin McSherry's "Vertical Graveyards"

2014-02-12T10:06:00-05:00

Martin McSherry’s “The Vertical Graveyards” is a speculative proposal for a new infrastructure of death, mimicking the skyscraper as a symbol of expanding and densifying urban systems. Currently an MArch student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, McSherry initially drafted the project as a proposal to the Nordic Association for Graveyards and Crematoria’s “The Graveyards of the Future” competition. Imagining the cemetery as vertical and central, rather than horizontal and suburban, the project focuses less on design specifics and more on provoking a change in societal attitudes towards death.

PS1 YAP 2011 Wrap-up

2011-06-13T14:30:00-04:00

With the winning PS1 entry by Interboro Partners being installed right now, Archinect takes a moment to catch up with Formlessfinder, winner of the Peoples' Choice Award, to talk about the how and the why of innovative architecture.

2011 PS1 Young Architects Program People's Choice Award

2011-02-23T13:00:00-05:00

Archinect is pleased to announce the PS1 People's Choice Award, an honor bestowed upon the PS1 competition entry that is selected by public vote as the architectural community's favorite.

In 2000 the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 launched the Young Architects Program (YAP), an annual competition to design and build an installation in the iconic triangular courtyard of MoMA PS1. Although MoMA's goals for the competition are rather modestly stated as to "provide visitors with an outdoor recreational area for the summer... making the best use of the pre-existing space and available materials," the competition quickly became a venue for architectural innovation and a platform from which practices such as SHoP, ROY, and nArchitects stepped into the big league.

Now in its twelfth incarnation, the PS1 YAP competition is beginning to show signs that its competitors have outgrown their hosts as an increasing number of entrants feel compelled to look beyond the creation of shade and add new...