Shortlist announced for Washington’s National Mall Design Competition


Dezeen Wire:
 fifteen international design teams are in with a chance of redesigning one of three sites on Washington’s National Mall following the announcement of the shortlist for the National Mall Design Competition.

Architecture practices competing on the shortlist include New York-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Snøhetta of Norway.

The competition aims to renovate three key sites in America’s most visited national park, which is home to some of the capital’s most famous landmarks including The Lincoln Memorial, The Washington Monument, The Jefferson Memorial and other monuments honouring former presidents and America’s war heroes.

Superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, Bob Vogel says: ”The National Mall Design Competition will be a new chapter, providing sustainable design that respects historic landscape and structures.”

A jury of experts in landscape design, urban park design, historic preservation and the arts will judge the competition, with the winner to be announced in May 2012.

You can see the full list of shortlisted teams on the National Mall Design Competition website.

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The New Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

This proposal by Amsterdam architects RAU and design agency Powerhouse Company is one of three projects vying to win a competition to design a dance and music centre for The Hague. 

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

The new centre would accomodate central performance auditoriums, offices, practice rooms, and a learning centre in the roof.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

A vertical slither of glass at the entrance would offer views of an atrium space and plaza, while  revealing movement within the building.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

The design is one of three finalists, competing with Zaha Hadid Architects (see their proposal in our earlier story) and Neutelings Riedijk Architecten.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

More details on the competition website. The winning project will be announced this month.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

Here’s more information from Powerhouse Company:


The architectural concept shows the movements of the performance in the design of the auditoriums. Visible for the public: the city and the Spuiplein. The building is a stage for performing arts, but also a tribune on the Spuiplein and the city.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

The design of the supporting space and practice rooms form the neutral, open and flexible spatial frame in which the movement of the auditoriums find their connection to the site.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

It is the clear ambition of the four institutes that will be housed in the DMC to create a synergy between their institutions so that the result is more then the simple sum of four institutions.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

From student to top-professional, from teacher to visitor, from practice room to large auditorium: the spatial synergy within the building for a large degree will determine the synergy between the different users.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects Powerhouse Company

The constellation of users creates a truly unique cultural hybrid building that does not exist yet anywhere in the world. At the same time it poses a number of important challenges.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

How to create a common identity while simultaneously respecting each of the users unique background? How to combine the neutral, flexible and open space needed for the preparation and creation of performing arts with the specific, intimate and technically perfect spaces needed for performances themselves? If the building is a laboratory for performing arts that take place in time, how do we give form to this space for time?

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

The concept can clearly be read in two parts: the clear spatial frame that creates a volume and the open space within that frame. Within this open space the fluid volumes reminisce the rhythm and movement of performances.

Dance and Music Centre by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

Two ‘walls’ and a ‘roof’ form the clear, rational and efficient volume that opens up towards the plaza. The back wall houses the preparation and supporting spaces that can be placed within standard office floors.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

In the side wall all the spaces are positioned which need exceptional height, such as the practice and dance studios. The roof houses the school and library.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

Under and within this rational and flexible volume lies a cascade of flowing space. In this spatial atrium the foyers and auditoriums flow over into a super public vertical landscape. The plaza extends far into the building; it flows into the atrium creating spectacular views over the city.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

This atrium, with its super efficient system of escalators, is the main infrastructural spine for the building: this is where not only all the different users meet each other, but also the visitors and the city. The city is always present in the view, so are the other foyers.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

On the level of the city, the individuality of each institute is only recognizable in the alteration of movement of the facade. Only in the interior of the building the different institutes reveal their individual nature.

Dance and Music Centre in The Hague by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

The result is a building with a wide range of spatial qualities. On the one hand a building with a very clear logistic and infrastructural mainframe that is ideal for studying, practicing and working. On the other hand a generous, spectacular, highly public and exciting space that is specifically geared towards maximum performances.

Dance and Music Centre by RAU Architects & Powerhouse Company

A building for dialogue and discovery – for the artists and the city. Watch the film here.

Credits:

Design team: Thomas Rau, Nanne de Ru, Marijn Emanuel, Bjørn Andreassen, Sander Apperlo, Johanne Borthne, Daan Brolsma, David Goehring, Stijn Kemper, Anne Larsen, Ard-Jan Lootens, Olen Snow MillHolland, Ania Molenda, Kaan Ozdurak, Stefan Prins, Magdalena Stanescu, Vincent Valentijn, Sybren Woudstra.

Structural design by Gilbert van der Lee / BREED ID.

Engineering advice by ARUP.

Climate advice by Octalix.

Images by MIR.


See also:

.

The New Dance and Music Centre in The Hague
by Zaha Hadid Architects
Centrum Muziek XXI by
Architecten van Mourik
Tour des Arts by
Forma 6

Are you a top gun?

ADC Young Guns competition is looking for the best of the best. If your under 30 you qualify. Click here to enter. We’ve included some notable designers that have been named “Top Guns” below:

Young Guns 7: Veronica Fuerta
Young Guns 6: Alex Trochut
Young Guns 5: Alex Lin
Young Guns 4: Reto Ehrbar
Young Guns 3: Scott Stowell
Young Guns 2: Benita Raphan
Young Guns 1: James Victore

Call For Entries: Earthquake Emergency Shelters

In light of the earthquake in Haiti and the emergent need for short-term emergency shelters, Core77 is inviting designers to create innovative pop-up shelter solutions in their latest 1 Hour Design Challenge. Core77 will donate $500 to Architecture For Humanity’s Haiti Earthquake Support Program in the name of the winner. For more details go here.

Call for Entries: 22nd Annual Warsaw Poster Biennale

Deadline for this international competition is January 15th. For more info on what the submission regulations are click here. To see selected winners of past competitions dating back to 1966 see this.

Goods for the Greater Good

Social Designer strives to spark new thinking about the issues that matter most by encouraging the design community to create fun, socially-relevant graphics for apparel, canvass bags, and many other things. Find out more here.

Red Dot Award: Communication Design 2009

Particularly in times of crisis a coherent brand presence becomes a survival strategy and successful communication design one of the most important differentiating tools in order to survive in the market.

However, good achievement always requires international comparison. With the “red dot award: communication design” we offer you the opportunity to have your work, along with entries from all over the world, evaluated by our expert jury, which awards the “red dot” quality seal to the best achievements. Face the competition and show the potential of good design with your work.

In order to take into account the increasing significance of design in the multimedia sector we have extended the categories this year and adapted them to current developments in the industry. Furthermore, this year the “red dot: junior prize”, which goes to the best work of a design student and comes with a prize money of 10,000 euros, will again be awarded. The honorary title “red dot: design agency of the year” will, from this year onwards, be awarded annually to an agency or a design office for its particularly continuous and innovative design achievements in the field of communication design.

Play your part and confirm the positive economic benefit of good design with your work!