Sponsors: arquitectum, AIA Miami

Type: Open, International

Language: English

Eligibility: Architects and students with architect or professor

Registration Fee:
Special Registration -  $100 USD
Early Registration - $150 USD
Late Registration – 14 April 2010

Awards:
First Place: $3,000 USD, airfare and Hotel accommodation for two to Miami for the ceremony
Seocond Place: $2,000 USD
Third Place: $1,000 USD
9 Honorable Mentions

Timeline:
16 February 2010 – Question Deadline
16 Februrary 2010 – Special Registration Deadline
16 March 2010 – Early Registration Deadline
14 April 2010 – Late Registration Deadline
21 April 2010 – Proposal submission Deadline
10 May 2010 – Winners Announced
June 2010 – Prize Ceremony in Miami

Jury:    
Jean Froncoise Lejeune
Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk
Laurinda Hope Spear
Adam Drisin

Design Challenge: Whether it is despite or thanks to Miami’s vertiginous development, it never found its geographical center and urban gravitational center. Therefore, Miami is composed of strips, avenues, suburbs and a small and weak “business center” which give incidence to verticality, rather than the enjoyment of the horizontal urban space coincident with the Atlantic horizon. Miami is bridges and viaducts, highways and Malls, small neighborhoods adjacent to private housings. As Los Angeles urban model, Miami has never encountered a functional civic space within its self-proclaimed center, which allows people to enjoy the proper “place spirit”.
For this reason, ARQUITECTUM and A Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Miami) have decided to choose a troubled spot with huge potential, where the future of the human urban space will be debated, with a pedestrian scale which will allow gathering, enjoying shadows and living as any other city in the world; returning the public space its superiority over private and closed space such as Shopping Centers.
For this purpose, a basic and important program has been porposed, which includes a Catholic Cathedral, high cost living housing (lofts), a Civic Center, a small Contemporary Architecture Museum, as well as several plazas that reconfigure the new Center from within, leading the public open space to become the main object of the project.

Submission Requirements:  two digital images that can be easily viewed within the horizontal format of a computer screen.  The presentation technique is absolutely open and at the discretion of the project designer.  However, the inclusion within the image of the following information is recommended: main concept of the project, plot plan, interior space perspective, elementary volumetric design, 3D view integrated with the context.  The digital format must be JPG in ZIP or RAR file size, 2MB at most

For more information, go to: http://www.arquitectum.com/index.php