Domus Academy Architecture Department gathers the rich teaching know-how of two different Master courses: Master in Urban Management and Architectural Design and Master in Interior and Living Design. The Department was born with the objective to work on the whole universe of urban experience. In this perspective, the department has created a training project of excellence able to reflect on the changes and transformations of the built space, promoting a permanent research activity for design models and solutions that are appropriate and innovative. The Master in Urban Management and Architectural Design offers an update of professional competences in terms of visions and design abilities. It intends to establish special relations between the functions of architecture and the quality of the territory. It intends to train professionals able to manage, at different levels, the complexity of urban, territorial and architectural issues, by using new tools of analysis and innovative design methodologies.

Ideas Spring Competition 2008 has the target to promote a research of innovative models to host the young and dynamic visitor community.

Hotel Milano
In the last decades Milan turned out to be an upcoming event city related to its world wide famous fashion and design weeks, to Real Estate fairs as well as to the dozens of commercial fairs attracting hundreds of thousands of people each year. The increasing visitor's flux is becoming a matter of congestion and overcrowding for the city, in any case the answer cannot be found in intensifying the traditional and already existing hotel network. Hotel Milano is an answer to urban needs that can be translated in a regeneration and innovation process of strategic areas of the city. It has to be shaped reflecting on the concrete opportunities that the most common urban conditions offer and on the trends that innovative hotel networks are experimenting all over the world. The proposed solutions should uphold a double strategy, reflecting both a general vision and a punctual architectural answer to specific site conditions. The candidate can choose to work on different areas - the solid 19th century city fabric, the old central productive quarters nowadays undergoing regeneration, the fragmented city void may be taken as inspirational models - depending on the strategies that one intends to develop.

Eligibility
The competition addresses to all the professionals in the subjects related to the urban and territorial development (architecture, planning, landscape, urban geography, economy, sociology, industrial design) and to students graduating in the above mentioned subjects within 2008.

Submission Requirements
- Written description of the project in A4 format (max. 3 pages)
- Two A3 Boards of the project

Prizes
One scholarship for non-EU citizens, covering 50% of the total tuition fee of the Master in Urban Management and Architectural Design at Domus Academy (17.000 Euros + VAT 20%).

One scholarship for EU citizens, covering 50% of the total tuition fee to the Master in Urban Management and Architectural Design at Domus Academy (13.000 Euros + VAT 20%).

These conditions are intended only for the Academic Year 2008 - 2009 (November 2008 - December 2009). All candidates, who send their project as participation to the competition will receive an award consisting of 15% discount on the tuition fee to attend the Master in Urban Management and Architectural Design. 

All the material must be the result of an unpublished work developed by the candidate, not to be used by the candidate in other or previous occasions. A curriculum vitae and a statement of purpose of the candidate must be attached to the project. The projects will be evaluated by the MUMAD Faculty.

Candidates will be informed on the results of the competition via e-mail by 30 May 2008. The works must be received at Domus Academy by and not later than May 15th 2008. Projects in digital format must be sent via e-mail to the following e-mail address: [email protected].

Paper works must be sent to the address: Domus Academy, “Ideas Spring / Hotel Milano”, Via Watt 37 - 20143 Milan, to the attention of the Architecture Department.