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.
