Finalists Announced for Urban Intervention Design Ideas Competition

From 107 design ideas submitted from around the world, Urban Intervention: The Howard S. Wright Design Ideas Competition for Public Space has selected 3 finalists and 7 commendations. In the spirit of the 1962 World’s Fair, Seattle Center and AIA Seattle invited multidisciplinary design teams to compete in an international design ideas competition to re-envision a nine-acre site in the heart of Seattle Center and use it to explore innovation in public space in the coming century.

In 1962, the Seattle World’s Fair reached into the future to imagine a region of innovation. It offered a vision of progress led by the limitless possibilities of science and technology. The Fair had a profound impact on Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, helping shape the focus on invention and opportunity that moved the region onto the world stage. The Fair’s legacy was a 74-acre cultural campus and urban park, Seattle Center, which continues to serve the region 50 years later. Similarly, we hold great ambition for the work of the finalist teams identified by the jury for their unique and innovative visions.

The three finalists are:

ABF (France) for their design, In-Closure. The design envisions an interactive wall around a forested landscape that is both flexible and dynamic, embracing social life in the city at multiple scales.

Team Members / Design Credits: ABF (Paul Azzopardi, Urban Engineer; Noé Basch, Climate Engineer; Etienne Feher, Architect)

KoningEizenberg Architecture + ARUP (United States) for their design, Park. The design organizes the disparate elements of the Seattle Center site and program into a sustainable and coherent landscape. It offers a mastery of the immediate and physical and programmatic challenges facing Seattle Center.

Team Members / Design Credits: KoningEizenberg Architecture (Nathan Bishop, Architecture; Julie Eizenberg, Architecture; Troy Fosler, Architecture; Rachel Bagan, Architecture; Annie Danis, Research and Communications); ARUP (Roberto Ammendola, Structures, Visualization and Simulation; Bruce Danziger, Structures; Russell Fortmeyer, Sustainability, Energy Infrastructure; Laura Klein, Structures; Trevor Mino, Civil; Elizabeth Valmont, Acoustics); Nancy Goslee Power and Associates (Nancy Goslee Power, Landscape Architecture Consultant; Joe Sturges, Landscape Architecture Consultant; Dan Sturges, Transportation/Mobility, Wheel Change: Consultant)

PRAUD (United States) for their design, Seattle Jelly Bean. The design is highly imaginative, and suggests a new kind of icon for the 21st century, an atmospheric and interactive cloud that is tethered both literally and figuratively to the site below.

Team Members / Design Credits:  PRAUD (Rafael Luna, architect; Dongwoo Yim, architect); Machado & Silvetti Assoc. (Cheng-Yang Lee, architect)

The finalists will visit Seattle in April to further develop their ideas informed by a series of public engagement activities and will make a final presentation on May 11, 2012, 6:30pm, at Intiman Playhouse.

Seven ideas received commendations from the jury, and teams that conceived them will each receive $1,000 in recognition for their ideas. Commendations went to:

• A Convertible Public Space by Nicolas Laisne (France)
• Flipped Park by Julien Combes Architecture (France)
• Living Laboratory by SABArchitects (United States)
• Seattle Center HUB (Hybrid Urban Bioscape) by Influx Studio (France)
• STEM by ELLUMUS (United States)
• The New Playfield by One Design (China)
• URBflow by AMa (Mexico)

The six-member jury included August de los Reyes, designer, writer, and educator (Palo Alto, CA); Gene Duvernoy, president of Forterra, formerly Cascade Land Conservancy (Seattle, WA); Tom Leader, principal of award winning landscape architecture firm Tom Leader Studio (Berkeley, CA); Mia Lehrer, founder of landscape architecture firm Mia Lehrer+Associates (Los Angeles, CA); Rick Lowe, celebrated public artist (Houston, TX); and Patricia Patkau, founding partner in the firm of Patkau Architects (Vancouver, B.C., Canada).

See images of the seven commendations in the image gallery below.