Yarışmalar-Competitions

Oficial Announcement
The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, the Institut Français d'Architecture (Paris), The Architecture Foundation (London), the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (Rotterdam) and the Architekturzentrum Wien (Vienna) officially announce the third award of the European Prize for Urban Public Space ,which is to be presented in July 2004

Aim
Those interventions aimed at improving or creating urban public spaces in European cities, and that were finalised in 2002 and 2003, are eligible for the Prize.

The remodelling of existing public spaces and the creation of new ones ex novo will be considered.

All possible scales of public space and the full range of its diversity are accepted: streets, the open spaces of housing sites, seafront and riverside spaces, former industrial zones, urban and metropolitan parks, etc.

In order to be considered eligible, these public spaces must be public property or offer free access to the public, and there must be no possibility that these circumstances will change in the future.

Interventions that aim to create new intermeshing in the city are also eligible although it should be borne in mind that it is the work done in public spaces and the relations between these spaces with the new urban fabric and the rest of the city that will be evaluated for the Prize.

Given that some interventions involve long periods of work before their completion, consideration will also be given to those projects that present enough completed phases of the work so as to illustrate clearly the philosophy that governs the project as a whole, even if the work is not totally finalised in the years 2002-2003.

Countries eligible to present projects are those that belong to the continent of Europe (including islands). The jury reserves the right to determine whether an urban population may be regarded as pertaining to a city or not.

Conditions for participation
Both the public institution that sponsors the intervention and the author or authors of the project may present for the Prize.

The deadline for presentation of projects is 19 April 2004.

The prize-winning projects and a selection of the interventions that have been presented for the Prize will be included in the European Archive of Urban Public Space. The material presented for the Prize will not be reclaimable. The participants in the project will not receive any payment of rights for any communication to the public or use of the selected material that is incorporated in the Internet Archive. Participants will exempt the organising institutions from all and any responsibility in case of plagiarism or any other transgression of the applicable laws that may occur.

Participation in this competition requires full acceptance of all the conditions specified in these rules.

Jury
The jury for the third award of the Prize will consist of a president and five members, all of international prestige and nominated by the institutions that are offering the Prize. The jury will dispose of the services of a secretary to be nominated by the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, which will also be responsible for keeping the minutes of the sessions that occur during the selection process.

The working sessions and deliberations of the international jury for the III Euro-pean Prize for Urban Public Space will take place in Barcelona in May 2004.

Criteria for evaluation
The criteria that will govern selection of those projects that are presented will not be exclusively related with the quality of the architectural, design or landscaping work but shall also take into particular account the following aspects:

A. Appropriateness of interventions to the functions required of public space, from those directly linked with citizens' occupation of a space that can be shared by all, through to those pertaining to the collective imaginary.

B. Inclusion of the projects in general urban policies concerned with environmental improvement in the surroundings and with the quality of life of the citizens.

C. Capacity of the interventions to favour a lessening of social inequalities in the city as a whole and the elimination of physical and/or symbolic barriers so as to promote cohesion within urban diversity.

D. The contributions of the projects in promoting public transport and alternative mobility.

E. The degree of citizen participation and engagement in the conception and/or carrying out of the intervention and in its subsequent maintenance.

F. The interdisciplinary nature of the studies that have given rise to the project (urban planning, architecture, landscaping, ecology, sociology, history…).

Nature of the prize
The Prize is honorary by nature and shall be jointly awarded to the sponsoring institution that has decided to carry out the project and to the author or authors of the work. The winners of the European Prize for Urban Public Space shall receive a commemorative plaque that is to be installed in the public space that has been awarded the Prize. Prizewinners and those that have received honourable mention shall receive the corresponding diploma.

The jury's decision shall be conveyed to the prizewinners and then announced to the public at the prize-giving ceremony that is to take place in July 2004.

The jury may concede the Prize ex aequo to a maximum of two projects, and a maximum of two honourable mentions shall also be made of other projects that are considered outstanding. The jury may also declare the Prize null and void if none of the projects presented should comply with the requisites that are established in the rules pertaining to the Prize. The decision not to choose any of the projects presented will be irreversible.

Documentation
Written documentation : A report giving a description of the state of the site before the intervention, the aims of the project and an account of the work done.

Written documentation, preferably in English, French, Catalan or Spanish, should not exceed 4,000 words.
Graphic documentation: Graphic documentation shall consist of documents and photographs pertaining to the project and should include:

A map showing the situation of the zone of intervention in relation with the city, and a map showing the location of the project in its immediate area of influence.
General plan and section of the project.

Photographs of the site before and after completion of the project, with aerial photographs if possible, or photographs taken from the same vantage point.
Photographs of the completed work.

Graphic documentation should be presented on paper and in digital format (CD or diskette) with JPG or similar files. The definition of these files will be 850 pixels or more (long edge of image). A minimum of 10 images should be presented. All images must make explicit reference to the author.

Apart from the minimum documentation, any other complementary documentation will be accepted (details, sketches, perspectives, photomontages, photographs of the model, of the construction process, of the finished work with its users, etc.) if participants consider it appropriate for better understanding of the work carried out.

All documentation should be included as part of a dossier of presentation. Maximum format: din-A3

All documentation should be sent, any working day from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with a deadline of 19 April 2004, to the Records section of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona:

Montalegre, 5
E-08001 Barcelona

Tel.: (+34) 93 306 41 00
Fax: (+34) 93 306 41 01
[email protected]

The aforementioned documentation should be delivered in an envelope on which is indicated, in such a way as to be clearly visible, the name of the project given at the time of free inscription.

Should the documentation be sent by post or messenger, this should occur within the period set for submissions, so that the date of sending should be verified by the post office or messenger company, and the Documentation Centre of the CCCB should be duly informed, by e-mail, fax or telegram, of the sending of the material on the day the documents are sent. If these requisites are not observed, the documentation will not be accepted by the CCCB if it should arrive subsequent to the deadline.