Does anyone else think the program for the Coney Island competition was strangely self-defeating? If the idea is to strengthen the boardwalk and celebrate the tower why are none of the pavilion designs sited on the boardwalk or engaging the boardwalk with the tower? In none of the 100 designs I looked at can you even just walk up to the tower and get your picture taken with it! Why did the CIDC make rules against the obvious fun and easy ways to solve the problem? Why didn't anyone break the rules? Isn't that the 1st rule of competitions!
The Parachute jump is a historical monument and has a restricted distance of adjacent buildings. the institute is interested in the possiblities of actually constructing the winning design so the hundred that you saw where the ones that stuck to the rules. you can see all 864 at vanalen.org and many did not follow the rules completely. you are absolutley right about not connecting to the boardwalk, but they only allowed to continue the boardwalk plain to the existing site line
the winning design is probably the most straightforward and simple design possible which is exactly what they needed, but when you have to work on the project for 8 weeks as a school project the most simple design is not always what you end up with.
Their swf file is broken (or my PC is). I can read the press release for grand prize winner, but can't get a list of the runners up and honorable mentions. Is the list available somewhere else?
Choosing which rules to blow off and which to build from, I think, is the most critical first step in any design. The WTC memorial design is a good example. I really knew it was wrong to follow the rules and require everybody to go down in a 30' pit as required, but wasn't daring enough at the crutial moment in my own design to do that. That, however, was the winning design.
For Coney it appears no one was daring enough to break from the jumble of historical accidents and compromising choices they were presented with and do the fairly obvious right thing.
The Coney program is a dumb design.
Does anyone else think the program for the Coney Island competition was strangely self-defeating? If the idea is to strengthen the boardwalk and celebrate the tower why are none of the pavilion designs sited on the boardwalk or engaging the boardwalk with the tower? In none of the 100 designs I looked at can you even just walk up to the tower and get your picture taken with it! Why did the CIDC make rules against the obvious fun and easy ways to solve the problem? Why didn't anyone break the rules? Isn't that the 1st rule of competitions!
Who won?
The Parachute jump is a historical monument and has a restricted distance of adjacent buildings. the institute is interested in the possiblities of actually constructing the winning design so the hundred that you saw where the ones that stuck to the rules. you can see all 864 at vanalen.org and many did not follow the rules completely. you are absolutley right about not connecting to the boardwalk, but they only allowed to continue the boardwalk plain to the existing site line
the winning design is probably the most straightforward and simple design possible which is exactly what they needed, but when you have to work on the project for 8 weeks as a school project the most simple design is not always what you end up with.
vanalen.org you can see who won
Their swf file is broken (or my PC is). I can read the press release for grand prize winner, but can't get a list of the runners up and honorable mentions. Is the list available somewhere else?
Choosing which rules to blow off and which to build from, I think, is the most critical first step in any design. The WTC memorial design is a good example. I really knew it was wrong to follow the rules and require everybody to go down in a 30' pit as required, but wasn't daring enough at the crutial moment in my own design to do that. That, however, was the winning design.
For Coney it appears no one was daring enough to break from the jumble of historical accidents and compromising choices they were presented with and do the fairly obvious right thing.
urbanist do you have flash? you need it to view all the entries, winners and honorable mentions.
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