White Arkitekter Wins Southend Pier Competition
By Bustler Editors|
Monday, Oct 5, 2009
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The Southend-on-Sea Borough Council in Essex, England announced the winner of the Southend Pier Head design contest: renowned Swedish based landscape architecture firm White arkitekter.
The company - which has also won awards for other maritime architecture projects throughout the world - clinched the top place with a design called ‘Sculpted by Wind and Wave.’ This winning scheme was chosen from among 73 international and local entries for the competition run by the Landscape Institute on behalf of the Council. The competition was run with the support of RIBA Competitions.
Winning Design at the Southend Pier Head Competition: ‘Sculpted by Wind and Wave’ by White arkitekter
The four other shortlisted design teams were:
- Wilkinson Eyre Architects with Schonherr Landscape and Conisbee
- Hugh Broughton Architects with Land Use Consultants, SKM and Spiers and Major Associates
- HOK
- LandLab with Ushida Findlay Architects, Atkins Bennett and United Creatives.
The Landscape Institute is an educational charity and chartered body responsible for protecting, conserving and enhancing the natural and built environment for the benefit of the public. This contest aimed to encourage ways to revitalize the Pier Head environment and devise innovative designs, enabling established leisure, recreation and tourism uses, to continue in an attractive, high quality and appealing setting.
White arkitekter’s Proposed Design: ‘Sculpted by Wind and Wave’
According to the report, White arkitekter clearly demonstrated the theme of ‘maritime, environmental and relaxed recreation’ which was chosen by the public after a major consultation with residents and visitors. This winning firm, if ratified by Cabinet and Council, would work in conjunction with British-based engineers Price & Myers to produce the scheme.
“We are excited to be selected as winners in Southend Pier Head competition. This project presents an opportunity to work on a site that calls for a unique landmark, this is why the competition caught our eye. We look forward to bringing the competition design to the next stage” - Niels de Bruin, White arkitekter.
Councillor John Lamb, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council’s Executive Councilor for Enterprise, Tourism and the Environment, says: “This has proved to be a most exciting competition which attracted international entries. We were thrilled to receive so many applications of interest, from which five very high quality proposals were shortlisted, and the winner was chosen from these five.
“The next step is for us to recommend that councilors will ratify the choice of the winner and engage White arkitekter as the lead designer.”
“This would be a multi-million pound development, which depends on us receiving a substantial Sea Change grant from the Government. We are likely to find out the outcome of our bid for funding this autumn, but have so far had very positive indications of success.”
Tom Lonsdale, who chaired the judging process for the Landscape Institute says: “The final decision was never going to be easy with such a diverse range of high quality approaches, but White arkitekter impressed the most because of their exceptional sensitivity to the location and a very polished design. We could see the potential for a memorable landmark and destination to which visitors would be drawn again and again.”
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