Winners of Williamsburg Waterfront Performance Venue Competition

Winners have been announced for the suckerPUNCH-curated Williamsburg Waterfront Performance Venue competition. This open international ideas competition asked for an integrated design of an innovative music venue in the East River State Park located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The new park is the site of the ‘JELLY Pool Parties’ summer concert series which brings 10,000 fans to the site on sunday afternoons to enjoy free performances by progressive independent artists. suckerPUNCH challenged designers to develop a network of stages and facilities which can accommodate and enhance these performances through a progressive design strategy.

1st Place: "park regeneration story_ landscape origami"
Euibeom Lee + Keunyoung Ryu + Kunho Kim, Seoul, Korea

"Urban parks provide rest and comfort to people who live in the city regardless of its size or location. In addition, parks are where people can reconnect to the mother nature in the midst of busy city lives.  Parks also serve as romantic dating spots, and sometimes create dramatic atmosphere. The urban parks bring out the most synergies when they are fully integrated with infrastructures, nature, climate, and events and add more livelihood and dynamics to the city." - more info

2nd Place: "lenticular field"
Justin Diles with Joanna-Maria Helinurm + Rangel Karaivanov, Vienna, Austria

"Lenticular Field is a low-flying cloud of steel and fiber-reinforced iridescent Mylar hovering over East River State Park. On the ground, a concrete plinth houses program and bends toward a waterfront stage while the voluptuous canopy shades and zones the park, its surfaces absorbing Apollonian power by day and releasing this energy in a Dionysian frenzy at night." - more info

3rd Place: "williamsburg waterfront venue for improvised architecture and music"
Sahand Ahmadian Tehrani + Dena Saffarian, Vienna, Austria

"Inspired by the mechanisms of self-organization and bottom-up adaptations of cities, we propose (instead of a final answer to the program) a network of “infrastructure” capable of hosting a multiplicity of configurations for the original program as well as undetermined scenarios and future programs." - more info

Honorable Mention: "williamsburg waterfront performance venue"
Inés Molinari + Mercedes Peralta + Dana Sáez + Cecilia Segal + Carolina Telo, Buenos Aires, Argentina

"The project presents an architecture investigation is inspired by geometrical models: Chinese traditional techniques such as origami and the tan gram game, geodesic investigations developed by B. Fuller, and other mathematical models such as fractals." - more info

Honorable Mention: "all aboard!"
Alberto Fernández Zequeira + Francisco Rodríguez Suárez, San Juan, Puerto Rico

"The concept for the project came from the park’s unique industrial past. Drawing inspiration from the original and forgotten railroad lines of the site, a new system of rails was designed for the project’s numerous stages and kiosks. This network provides for an infinite number of possible configurations depending on the size and type of venue while maintaining and enhancing the parks sense of open, natural and inclusive space. Maximum flexibility with minimal infrastructure. Innovation through historic interpretation." - more info