Call for Entries: Baghdad Design Centre

Tamayouz Excellence Award is delighted to invite students, designers and architects worldwide to transform the current unused site of the Old Governorate Building into the Baghdad Design Centre in the city's Cultural District, Al-Rusafa.

The competition hopes to see a new architectural approach that helps Baghdad celebrate its architecture and heritage. The transformation of the site into a Design Centre that showcases the best of contemporary design and is also a space of creative collaboration forms the basis of the brief. Whilst creating a new and optimistic vision for the future of design within Iraq the proposals should also set a benchmark for the respectful treatment of cultural heritage in a true fusion of the old and the new.

ELIGIBILITY
Architects, students, engineers and designers are invited to participate in this prize. Participation can be on an individual or team basis (maximum of four team members). We encourage the participation of multidisciplinary teams.

SCHEDULE
09 / February / 2018 - Start of Early bird registration.
06 / June / 2018 - Start of the Standard registration.
01 / September / 2018 - Last week for registration.
06 / September / 2018 - Closing date for Registration.
09 / September / 2018 - Closing date for Submissions.
November / 2018 - Announcement of Results.
December 2018 - Annual Tamayouz Excellence Award Ceremony.

All Deadlines are 11:59 pm GMT (London)

PRIZES
PRIZE WINNER: 
$5000 + The Rifat Chadirji Statuette + Trip to the 2018 Award Ceremony (Flights & Hotel covered by the organisers)

2nd & 3rd PRIZES: 
$1000 Each + Certificate + Trip to the 2018 Award Ceremony Flights & Hotel covered by the organisers)

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD
$500 + Certificate

7 x Honourable Mentions: 
Certificates

TOP 20 & TOP 50
Published on our website and social media pages

THE AWARD CEREMONY: 
An invitation to attend the Tamayouz Award Annual Ceremony for the Top Three mentioned above (Flight and Accommodation costs covered by the organisers of the prize; Tamayouz Excellence Award), Every year Tamayouz International Award chooses a different city to host the ceremony, in 2017 it was held in Amman - Jordan. This year’s City will be announced later in the year.

Download the information related to this competition here.

The site is the old Baghdad Governorate Building in Al-Rusafa side of Baghdad (old Al-Rusafa area), the site lies between Al-Rasheed st. to the north, Al-Mutanabbi st., Al-Shuhadaa Bridge and Madrasa Mustansiriya to the east, the Abbasid Palace to the west and Al-Qishla and Tigris river to the south.

The partially remaining building fabric on the competition site is what was once the Old Baghdad Governorate Building built in the early 20th century.  

The Old Baghdad Governorate building was heavily damaged (only the skin of the building remains) due to the looting and the vandalism in the week that followed the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.  The site is currently underused, and have not been properly maintained.

The competition site and the skin of the old building are now called Al-Multaqa (the meeting point), where people usually meet before heading to the crowded surrounding areas.