City of Dreams Pavilion 2018

FIGMENT has once again teamed with the Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA) of the American institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIANY) and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) to host a competition to design and construct the City of Dreams Pavilion, an architectural pavilion that serves as the centerpiece of Governors Island. The 2018 pavilion will be the eighth City of Dreams Pavilion. In 2013, Head in the Clouds by StudioKCA won a Best of Year award from Interior Design Magazine in the installation category as well as a Small Projects Award from the AIA. In 2014, CDR Studio created Governors Cup, which won an AIANY Merit Award. In 2015, our jury was deadlocked in choosing a winning design, and so decided to name two winners: Billion Oyster Pavilion by BanG Studio (from Long Island City, NY) and Organic Growth by Izaskun Chinchilla Architects (from Madrid, Spain). Pending permits and approvals, the winner of the 2018 City of Dreams Pavilion competition will be installed and open to the public on New York City’s Governors Island throughout the 2018 summer season.

The City of Dreams Pavilion will be a gathering place for people to meet, learn about the arts programs on the island, or enjoy a performance or lecture. In the City of Dreams Pavilion, visitors can experience the interaction of art and the historic context of Governors Island.

Our name for the pavilion, the City of Dreams, points toward the future. If we imagine a future New York City where anything is possible, what would it look like? In our wildest and most optimistic dreams, what is the future of our city? The current state of the world is such that both economic and natural resources are extremely limited. A new way of thinking is necessary to solve the problems that impact the world. Inevitably, the result will be a change in the basic practices that have driven the world to its current state. One place to begin to activate and energize these changes is within the architecture and design community, where the movement toward sustainable design has only scratched the surface of what is possible and necessary.

To Submit a Proposal: First, register by September 15, 2017, at http://newyork.figmentproject.org/city_of_dreams_pavilion_submissions.

Submit your City of Dreams Pavilion proposal by 11:59pm ET on September 30, 2017. NOTE: Proposals must follow the Proposal Criteria and Proposal Requirements outlined here. Proposals should be submitted via email to [email protected].

Our jury will meet and we will notify all finalists in mid-October 2017.

The competition entry fees (which will be applied to the costs of building and maintaining the winning entry) are as follows:

• Student entries - $40
• Individual entries - $90
• Group entries (including groups of students) - $140

After you have registered, you will receive a link to download a submission packet with the City of Dreams Pavilion 2017 Design Guide and reference images of Governors Island, previous City of Dreams Pavilion competition winners, and other FIGMENT projects that have been built on the island.

Entries are encouraged from individuals or teams of architects and non-architects of any age or experience level, provided they are prepared to carry out the project. Attribution of the winner and finalists will be given based on the names of the individuals who enter, rather than to any firm with whom they are affiliated.

Proposal Criteria Instead of a typical design competition, the City of Dreams Pavilion asks entrants to consider how to construct this temporary structure in the most efficient and sustainable way possible. Entrants are asked to consider using “borrowed” materials from existing construction sites and from places where the materials can be returned after the season ends and the temporary structure is disassembled. The goal is to create a pavilion that has net zero impact and serves as a prototype for a new, truly sustainable approach to design and construction.

Entrants should submit where their materials are to come from, how their structures will be transported to the site, how they will eliminate waste during installation, and how they plan to disassemble and reuse the materials after the island closes for the season. In other words, entrants are being asked to consider using "borrowed" materials—from existing construction sites and from places where the materials can be returned after the season is over and the temporary structure is disassembled.

In the end, the goal is to create a pavilion that has a net zero impact and that serves as a prototype for a new, truly sustainable, way of thinking about design and construction. We anticipate that the pavilion will be installed on the South Parade Grounds on Governors Island. However, this placement is pending approval and is subject to change.

Essential Proposal Requirements:

• Create a gathering place for 50 or more people, providing shade and rain cover.
• Provide an integrated performance area/stage for small dance performances, music ensembles, and/or spoken word productions.
• Consider the full lifecycle of the materials used—where they come from and where they will go after the island closes for the 2017 season.
• Provide for the design and installation of the project, including sourcing all materials.
• All materials must be able to be transported on the Coursen Ferry (11’ vertical clearance).
• The structure must be freestanding, and cannot penetrate the ground to a depth greater than 6”.
• The design will require approval from a number of public agencies prior to installation, which may include the Trust for Governors Island, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), and the NYC Department of Buildings.
• Include a budget that anticipates all costs of fabrication, transportation, installation, and de-installation.
• Visitor Safety: The design should not give visitors the opportunity to climb or hang on the pavilion or do anything that would be a risk to their safety.

Optional considerations:

• How will the pavilion support educating the public about arts programs on the island?
• How will the pavilion support informal performances or lectures?
• What other kinds of activities could take place in the pavilion?

The Competition Jury The City of Dreams 2018 Pavilion Design Competition will be a two-stage process, in which a jury of leading architects and other industry professionals will review initial submissions and select a number of finalists. These finalists will receive comments and have the opportunity to revise their proposals. The jury will select the competition winner in November 2017. The confirmed 2018 City of Dreams Pavilion Competition jurors are:

• David Benjamin, Founder and Principal, The Living
• Anna Fixsen, News Editor, Architectural Record
• Benjamin Gilmartin, AIA, Partner, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
• Anna Ha, LEED AP, Behin Ha Design Studio
• Jorge Otero-Pailos, AIA, Director and Professor of Historic Preservation, Columbia University; Founder and Editor, Future Anterior Journal
• Risa Puno, Artist

Proposal Requirements

As this is a blind competition, entries should not disclose the name(s) of the entrant(s) in the content of the PDF file, only in the covering email, and in the name of the PDF file. Please do give your pavilion design a name, and include this name on each page of your submission. To ensure anonymity, it is important that the name for your pavilion is specific to the project, and does not have any relation to your personal name or the name of any firm or organization that you may be associated with.

Your entry should include a total of three (3) 11”x 17” pages in landscape format, saved as a single PDF file, as follows:

Page 1-2: Proposed Design

• Please include graphics that show how your project will look, and how it will be constructed. Please feel free to use any graphic style that you are comfortable with-- hand-drawing, SketchU, Illustrator, CAD are all perfectly acceptable. The most important thing is clarity. Please make sure these pages are labeled with the name of your proposed design.

Page 3: Supporting Documentation

• Please detail what materials you plan to use for the project, bearing in mind the full lifecycle of the materials used: Where do they come from? Where do they go after the project is de-installed?
• Please include a budget for materials and expenses. Designers will be reimbursed for materials purchased up to a certain amount yet to be determined, pending fundraising for this project.

Please name your submitted PDF file in the following manner: 

• "name of proposed pavilion -- designer or team name.pdf" ("my pavilion -- john smith.pdf')

Please do not have any security or password protection enabled on your PDF file. 

The final entry should be submitted by the same individual (with the same email) who registered the submission. If a different individual submits the entry, please indicate in the email the name and email address of the original registrant. 

By submitting a project, you are asserting that you are the creator of your design, and that you have the full rights or license to use any and all intellectual property contained therein. If your project is based on someone else’s work or includes someone else’s work, you must make sure that you either get permission from the creator or adapt the original concept significantly so that it would be legally considered to be entirely your work.

The City of Dreams 2018 Pavilion Design Competition will be a two-stage process, in which a jury of leading architects and other industry professionals will review initial submissions and select a number of finalists. These finalists will receive comments and will have the opportunity to revise their proposals. 

Selection criteria that the jury will consider:

• Proposal feasibility and buildability
• Lifecycle considerations and overall environmental impact
• Adherence to theme
• Design impact
• Innovative use of materials
• Visitor safety: the design should not give visitors the opportunity to climb or hang on the pavilion, or do anything that would be a risk to their safety

Questions If you have any questions about the 2017 City of Dreams Pavilion competition, please email them to [email protected].