Architects always love to participate in versatile works. Now this is a time to jump in to design something interesting and different than what they do every day. New York City Department of Transportation in collaboration The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and Google Inc. has declared an open international design competition to design the bicycle parking racks for the city. Architects, artists, engineers, landscape architects, planners, urban designers, product and industrial designers, and manufacturers are invited to participate in this competition. Two different competitions will be held together.

1.For ‘Sidewalk Racks’
This is a two stage international design competition. Competitors will submit concept ideas in Stage I. A selection committee will select up to ten competitors who will move to Stage II and receive an honorarium of $5,000 to produce two full-scale prototypes of their design. These prototypes will be exhibited at an opening reception at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in fall 2008 and will then be installed at two locations in the City to test their ability to withstand the New York City street environment. The jury will then select first-, second-, and third-place winners. The first-place winner will receive an additional $10,000 prize[1].

2.For ‘Indoor parking racks’
This is a one stage international design competition. Top 3 will be awarded. And the first prize winner will be privileged to design the indoor bicycle parking racks for the office of Google Inc. in New York.

Registration Deadline: 30 April 2008

Submission Deadline: 9 June 2008

Links: | Competition Website | Download Documents | Registration |



The purpose of the competition is to develop functional, well-designed sidewalk racks and to generate new concepts for bicycle parking inside commercial and residential buildings. These two initiatives, in addition to NYCDOT’s commitment to increasing the number of miles of bicycle facilities, providing the City’s first sheltered bike parking stations and creating more bicycle parking at transit stations, will raise the profile of bicycling as a convenient mode of transportation in New York.
The City intends to use the winning sidewalk rack as its new standard for bicycle parking. The design for the in-building rack will first be installed by Google in its New York City headquarters. It may also be used by City-owned buildings in the future, when possible.
ArchSociety Forum will always be helpful to those who want to discuss anything regarding this competition, information and design materials. Members are encouraged to share their thoughts and ideas towards a new standard of bicycling in the city.

Bauhaus Dessau Foundation arranges the International Bauhaus Award every 2 years. This year (2008) Bauhaus Dessau Foundation highlights on ‘Housing for the Poor’ globally. And the submission for the award program is open for various array of works like physical design of low cost sustainable housing, research and conceptual works, even it can be a film.
With the 5th Bauhaus Award, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation continues its research into “Updating Modernism”. In doing so, a central topic of the historical Bauhaus is taken up and put into the context of a contemporary discourse: solutions are sought for the subsistence level housing of today. The same title was chosen for the second conference held by CIAM (or International Congress of Modern Architecture) in Frankfurt am Main in 1929.
Here, new models and prototypes for small apartments were presented and discussed by, among others, the Bauhaus directors Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer. Almost eight decades later, this historical Bauhaus theme is more pertinent than ever. Societies worldwide are confronted, in the social, ecological and cultural respect, with the problem of housing shortage.

The 5th International Bauhaus Award will look at modern standards in the field of housing and examine these in the light of the current parameters of housing shortage. Creative designs or concepts and models or scenarios for housing policy are sought for the social strata, which live on the subsistence minimum and are therefore unable to establish themselves on the housing market. The urban ways of life associated with poverty lead to existential housing shortages, which, given the ecological conditions of climate change, will only become more extreme. How is the ever-critical relationship between poverty and the housing shortage resolved? Individuals or groups may tender entries of work developed in the last five years – design outlines, plans, research projects, films, concepts, etc.

Eligibility: Participants may include architects, students, designers, artists and academics who are under 40 years of age by the project completion date.

Awards: The first prize is 6,000 Euro, the second 4,000 Euro and the third 2,000 Euro.

Deadline of Submission: 31st March 2008

Contact: Visit the official page of International Bauhaus Award 2008

If we look towards the footpaths in the cities of (so called) 3rd world countries we see nothing other than homeless people all around. Billions of people around the world are living in unplanned, unhealthy settlements. Even the stories of their living in a film may become a potential trigger in the flame of talks and activities of doing something for the poor homeless people.
Those who feel this necessity may jump in this work to participate in the Bauhaus Award this year and do something truly fruitful for the real people in the real grounds.

(Information taken from Bauhaus Dessau Official website. The Bauhas Dessau logo is used just for representation. Photographs are taken from different open source resources & ArchSociety doesn't claim their ownership anyway)

We already know that this year (2008) the world congress of architects organized by the UIA (International Union of Architects) is going to be held in Torino, Italy in June-July with the overall theme “Transmitting Architecture”. ArchSociety published the news of the event and the call-for-papers notice of the conference before.

Recently UIA Torino 2008 committee has been announced the UIA design competition for the event as they do in every congress. Two different competitions have been declared one for students and another for young architects under 35. Take look to the brief of these to prestigious competitions of the year. Take part in and become a proud winner or participant in a mega event like UIA World Congress 2008.


Totem: International Competition for Students
This is an idea competition. The participants have to design something, a symbol which will signify the main theme of the congress ‘Transmitting Architecture’. The design will be of an architectural object for communication, information and exchange to be located in one of the following three types of environment: a social context: poverty; a natural context: ecology; an urban context: metropolis.
From registration to submission, the entire competition procedure will be running in the internet. There’s no registration fee for entrants.
Visit the competition website for details: totem.uia2008torino.org
Leave comments to this news item in ArchSociety to ask anything or discuss about this competition.



Info Point: International Competition for Architects Under 35
Here the participants have to design an Info Center where people will get information about architecture, information about the congress when it will be operating. And the overall design will focus on the most complete and deep meaning of the theme ‘Transmitting Architecture’. On the occasion of the UIA Congress the info-point will be positioned at the intersection of Piazza Castello and Via Pietro Micca, in an area of about 24X39 m, to announce Congress events and public activities. There will be
-info point, exhibition area, outdoor lounge area, press area, small storeroom, toilet facilities, and the meeting point for the UIA radio. Maximum built area will be 80-100sq. m. with a maximum height of 4m, except for any totem/sign.
Visit the competition website for details: infopoint.uia2008torino.org
Leave comments to this news item in ArchSociety to ask anything or discuss about this competition.