Quito's Lake Park Open International Ideas Competition

The Metropolitan Municipality of Quito, the Corporation for Environmental Health ‘Vida para Quito’, and the Architects’ Association of Pichincha-Ecuador, are implementing the Open International Competition for Ideas in urban planning, architecture and landscape architecture for the design of Quito’s Lake Park (Parque del Lago). The Competition Site is currently the location of the Mariscal Sucre International Airport, in the city’s north.

The above mentioned Competition seeks to obtain holistic proposals that allow: the reconfiguration of the urban development policies and tendencies of the northern zone, the promotion of urban improvement processes, the solution for the limitations of northern Quito’s transversal connectivity (east - west), the reduction of environmental liabilities, the promotion of the recuperation of the landscape and urban enviroment, and the generation of well-being and social integration in public spaces.

The Competition launching will take place on August 18, 2008. The official languages of the Competition are Spanish and English.

The Competition constitutes an invitation directed to all national and international professionals , tied to the professions of architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture, urban design, etc., in order that in an open manner, all actors may participate and take part in the design of a future public space of special transcendence for the city of Quito.

The Competition
The condition of the metropolitan center and the new requirements for connectivity in the city and region at the international scale has deemed necessary a new airport. The closure of airport operations at Mariscal Sucre International Airport and its foreseen displacement in the second half of 2010 to the plains of Caraburo in the Parrish of Tabalela, will undoubtedly have great impact urbanistically, in the city in general and in the central northern zone specifically, as a result of the change in the urban dynamic due to the relocation of economic activities of a different typology that will be produced in the surrounding area, ones that have been traditionally tied to the airport.

The soon to be available space, consisting of 126 hectares of regular topography located in the center of a consolidated area, which will become a park by mandate of the Metropolitan Council of Quito, constitutes an exceptional and unique opportunity that obliges a rethinking of the city and the exploitation of the prospect to plant new multiply themed solutions. Amongst these, they shall be tied to the changes in land use, the improvement of transversal mobility and connectivity, the amplification of infrastructure, the allocation of green areas and public spaces, the improvement of environmental conditions, the recuperation of the landscape and urban environs, and the elevation of the quality of life of current and future residents of the city.

http://www.quitourbanideas.com/