This competition is part of a joint research initiative by the Concordia University Chair of Integrated Design, Ecology, and Sustainability for the Built Environment and the Chaire de recherche sur les concours de l’Université de Montréal to stimulate debate on the importance of public space for heightening awareness to climate change issues and to mobilize the creativity of young designers of
the built environment.
This 2017 edition is done in collaboration with Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal
(CRE-Montreal), an organization focused on the protection of the environment and the promotion
of sustainable development for the island of Montreal.
CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CHAIR IDEAS-BE + LE CONSEIL RÉGIONAL DE L’ENVIRONNEMENT DE MONTREAL + UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL RESEARCH CHAIR ON COMPETITIONS are organizing an environmentally engaged ideas competition for reinvigorating public spaces around bus stops. This competition is open to students and graduates of less than 5 years in the fields of architecture, design, landscape and urban design.
This ideas competition seeks both:
(a) designs that are environmentally engaging; and
(b) a series of principles that could be adopted for future implementation in collaboration with the City of Montreal, the STM and private landowners.
The Project
This competition seeks ideas and projects stimulate appreciation of urban spaces by highlighting the significance of nature, art, and design. The chosen slogan, “MORE THAN WAITING FOR THE BUS” invites designers to reflect on contemporary approaches that can help invigorate these spaces in interactive, poetic, critical and meaningful ways: from solely utilitarian to more multi-purposed spaces surrounding bus stops.
Competitors must be aware that this is not a competition for redesigning a bus shelter, but rather an opportunity to rethink the site surrounding the bus stops. The intention is to make waiting for the bus enjoyable in a variety of ways and to encourage citizens to use the bus rather than their car, all year long, including hot summer days and long cold winter months. Furthermore, as opposed to current practices which consider bus stops as universally dropped objects onto urban spaces, the organizers seek to constitute a Best Practice Guide that will include a synthesis of principles submitted by each team of competitors.
“MORE THAN WAITING FOR THE BUS” wants to expand the vocabulary of bus stop site design. It will serve as a learning platform for future designers. Possible design interventions are:
- greening of site;
- installations that help communities develop climate change awareness;
- spaces of respite from the visual stimulation around the city;
- interactive ephemeral wall drawings;
- playing with light (day and night times);
- interactive experiences for all ages;
- the ability for the space to offer different experiences throughout the year, month, week, or even day;
- alternative forms of energy technologies used in a variety of ways and purposes;
- among many others…
These can be accomplished using: art installations, urban furniture designs, site specific designs, pocket parks, wall projections, wall graffitis, light effects, etc.
Forum of Questions
Design Submission Specifics
There are four different bus stop sites (each a different type) in this ideas competition. Teams can propose only one submission per bus stop type (described below) and therefore teams can propose up to a maximum of four idea submissions – one for each of the four bus stop types described below. Each of the submissions will be judged separately. Each panel and text submitted must clearly indicate which bus stop type is addressed in the submission.
All project submissions must also identify at least one key recommendation (or principle) regarding best practices for designing public spaces surrounding bus stops. These recommendations will be collected and summarized into a Best Practice Guide published for Quebec. Entering this competition implies that competitors agree to share their ideas as potential contributions to this collective publication.
Criteria Considered by Jury
The following will be used to judge and select the winning projects for each of the four bus stop types. Each submission will be judged based on how well they accomplish the following.
- Clarity and appropriateness of the recommendation(s) (or principles) for designing public spaces surrounding bus stops.
- Coherence and strength of the project proposed with respect to the key recommendation(s) (or principles).
- Quality of the embodiment of the principle in the chosen context.
- Explicit consideration of the following parameters:
Viability along the 4 seasons
Contribution to the reduction of urban heat island effects
Neighbouring community needs
Universal design
More than $6000 of prizes to win.
One winning proposal will be selected for each bus stop profile type (four prizes).
Each winning team will receive $1500.
One popular prize of $250 will also be awarded, on the basis of an online vote.
Important Note on Post Competition Responsibilities:
Competitors are reminded that this is a preliminary stage in a process that will necessarily involve experts in various offices at the city, borough and STM. The organizers cannot guarantee that the winning projects will be built as submitted but will support the ideas of the young winning designers in the future developments of the project. All competitor names will be clearly indicated in future publications related to this competition as well as included in the acknowledgments in the Best Practice Guide.
Registration
Registration is mandatory.
The competition is open to teams of students and graduates of less than 5 years in the fields of architecture, design, landscape and urban design.
Projects will be judged anonymously. You must register your team in order to receive a team number. All documents you submit cannot contain any team names or identifiers of team members, but rather each submission must be identified by the team number you are assigned at registration.
Contact
For registration or for further information, please send an email to: Ideas.be@concordia.ca
Please include the following information for each team member:
1. Full name + email address
2.Affiliation (university, and if working, the place of employment).
3a. If a student, program of study, university and year of study.
3b. If a young creative practitioner the number of years of experience in design related field (proof of graduation after June 2012).
WALK ABOUT REPORTS – Mercier Ouest & Thomas Chapais
Deliverables
Submitted to ideas.be@concordia.ca
A project proposal refers to a design submission for one bus stop type. Each project proposal must contain 3 PDF files (a pdf of the low resolution version of the panel, a PDF of the descriptive text , and a pdf of the high resolution version of the panel):
1. a PDF file (landscape A0: 891mm X 1189mm) containing the project panel which includes (a low resolution version pdf):
a) title
b) team number (anonymous submission is mandatory – any submission with names will be disqualified, only the team number should appear on the submission)
c) all necessary design elements making the proposal intelligible and feasible
d) sketches, elevations, perspective drawings and aerial views of the design
e) an image of the design in its context
2. a PDF file (portrait A4: 210mm X 297mm) containing a synthesis report which includes:
a) A cover page with the title, team number and thumbnail image for web purposes (300X300 pixels)
b) description of concept (approximately 350 words)
c) synthesis of community consultation (approximately 250 words)
d) preliminary list of materials
e) at least one recommendation (or principles) that is key to improve the design of public spaces surrounding bus stops. These must have been adopted in the team’s proposal. (NB: All the recommendations by all teams will be collected and summarized into a Best Practice Guide for Quebec, so clarity and conciseness is important).
3. a weTransfer link to a high-definition version of PDF for the design project panel
a) the weTransfer link to the high resolution version of the project panel should be included in the descriptive text file
All files should be anonymous and include only the TEAM NUMBER you received at registration. The file names should include the team number and the bus stop type. For example: Team26_Type2_panel.pdf.
All proposals will be exhibited in a collective show as well as fully documented for public display online, on the Canadian Competitions Catalogue (CCC – www.ccc.umontreal.ca). The CoLLaboratoire, the CRE-Montréal and the ILEAU project, will also announce the winners on their websites once the results are made public, and will provide a link to the CCC for full competition documentation. The proposals may also be exhibited on the social media pages of the Canadian Competitions Catalogue, CoLLaboratoire, ILEAU and CRE-Montréal.
Although the copyrights remain with the teams, all team participants must agree to disseminate their projects as well as use their proposals for research purposes only. The winning ideas will be presented to the appropriate design panels at the City of Montreal, the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough and the STM for potential future development. The principles and recommendations identified in the submissions will be collected, summarized and categorized into a Best Practices Guide.
Schedule
February 2, 2017: Registration Opens
February 16, 2017:
Competition Launch: full brief released online
March 2, 2017: Presentation + Only Forum of Questions Event – at the Maison du développement durable (MDD)
March 17, 2017: FAQ’s to be published
March 24, 2017: Registration Closes
April 7, 2017: Competition Submission Deadline at 5:00PM EST
April 10, 2017: Competition Jury Meeting
April 19, 2017: Event for the Announcement of the Winners – online and at MDD)
JURY
Carmela Cucuzzella, Associate Professor from Concordia University will act as competition advisor for the jury, but will not be part of the judgment process. The jury is expected to select a winner for each of the profile type bus stop sites.
- André-Anne D’Amours – CRE-Montréal
- Zachary Patterson – CRC in Transportation and Land Use Linkages for Regional Sustainability and Associate Professor in Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University
- Howard Davies: Architecte, Big City et professeur à l’École d’Architecture de McGill University
- Ron Rayside – Architect
- Peter Fianu: Architecte, conseiller en aménagement, Ville de Montréal
- Christelle Kouotze – YQQ – Éco-quartier MHM
- Jean-Pierre Chupin – Chaire de recherche sur les concours UdM and professor of School of Architecture
4 Bus Stop Types
The four locations are along Sherbrooke Street East in Montreal, Quebec. Each of the sites
currently house a bus shelter. We invite participants to think creatively about the site, while any intervention should not get in the way of actual shelter for users.
Type 1.
Corner Sherbrooke and Joffre
(Thomas-Chapais’s link, in front of the CH Judith-Jasmin) Surrounded by grass – no wall nearby
Type 2.
Cadillac Station, North-East Corner
Surrounded by grass – wall nearby
Type 3.
Langelier Station, South-West Corner
Surrounded by asphalt –wall nearby
Type 4.
Corner Sherbrooke and de Carignan
Surrounded by asphalt – no wall nearby
About the Organizers
Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal (CRE-Montréal)The Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal, the regional environmental office, is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the environment and the promotion of sustainable development on the island of Montreal. Through the regroupment and the concertation of its members, through its outreach activities, its public representation, and the various action projects, it contributes to the improvement of the quality of spaces for living and to social equity for the island of Montreal.
To learn more : www.cremtl.qc.ca. Follow us on Twitter.
Interventions locales en environnement et aménagement urbain (ILEAU) :
The ILEAU (Interventions locales en environnement et aménagement urbain) project is an operation that seeks to reduce urban heat islands in the region of Montreal East until 2017. Coordianted by the CRE-Montréal, the project is realized in direct collaboration with various local and regional partners. It combined multiple and concerted interventions that touch as much the greening of sites and buildings as the realization of public spaces that facilitate access to green spaces and active mobility, in the perspective of weaving an active green and blue neighbourhood.
Site Web : www.ileau.ca. Follow the project on Twitter andFacebook.
The ILEAU project is financed in part by the Fonds vert in the framework of the Plan d’action 2013-2020 sur les changements climatiques (PACC) du gouvernement du Québec.
Concordia University Research Chair in Integrated Design, Ecology and Sustainability for the Built Environment (IDEAS-BE)
This research chair (http://www.ideas-be.ca/) directed by Dr. Carmela Cucuzzella, Associate Professor in Design and Computation Arts, focuses on the study of design discourses and expertise for the built environment situated at the crossroads of cultural, social, environmental and economic concerns. It considers sustainability as a paradigm crossing the main disciplines and professions concerned with design for the built environment (urban design, architecture, and landscape). This research program seeks to identify, categorize and disseminate strategic transformations of sustainable intentions in the design of the urban built environment
COLLABORATOIRE (Concordia University)
CoLLaboratoire (https://ideas-be.ca/project/collaboratoire/) is a research project lead by Dr. Carmela Cucuzzella, who holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Integrated Design, Ecology, And Sustainability for the Built Environment (IDEAS-BE). CoLLaboratoire is an initiative that seeks to plan, design, and build public space urban installations with the intent of heightening climate change awareness, while also building capacity in citizenry to address this issue together. It serves as a medium for scientific research requiring citizen-engagement, while also creating a measurable impact with regards to the quality of the spaces for living. The aim is to successfully make connections between academics, community members, and business leaders in order to be better able to address sustainability challenges together.
Chaire de recherche sur les concours et les pratiques contemporaines en architecture (Université de Montréal)
Dirigée par Jean-Pierre Chupin, PhD, professeur titulaire, architecte MOAQ, MIRAC, cette chaire de l’Université de Montréal se consacre à l’étude des pratiques de conception de l’environnement bâti en les analysant au filtre des concours, tant à l’échelle canadienne qu’internationale. Depuis 2012, grâce à la Fondation Canadienne de l’Innovation, cette chaire est responsable du Catalogue des Concours Canadiens, bibliothèque de projet offrant une interface au grand public (www.ccc.umontreal.ca) ainsi qu’un accès réservé aux chercheurs (www.crc.umontreal.ca).
Funding:
The ILEAU project is financed in part by the Fonds vert dans le cadre du Plan d’action 2013-2020 sur les changements climatiques (PACC) of the Quebec government.
The prizes attributed within the framework of this competition are made possible through the funds of the Concordia University Research Chair in IDEAS-BE and the Chaire de recherche sur les concours et les pratiques contemporaines en architecture of the Université de Montréal.
