Deadline: 23 January 2014
Open to: projects of intervention in public spaces
Award: diploma and a commemorative plaque which is to be installed in the prize-winning public space
Description
The European Prize for Urban Public Space, created in 2000, is a biennial competition organized by seven European institutions with the aim to recognize and encourage the recovery projects and defense of public space in our cities.
With ideas of equality, plurality and progress constituting part of its very foundations, the European city is today facing new challenges arising from its exponential growth and increasing social and cultural complexity. Some of society’s main problems are expressed in its public spaces: segregation, rampant construction and deficiencies in guaranteeing the rights to housing and to the city are some of the phenomena that are putting into jeopardy the ideal of the open and democratic community that has always been so distinctive of the European city.
The aim of the Prize is to recognise and foster the public character of urban spaces and their capacity for fostering social cohesion. While acknowledging the ambiguities inherent in the notion of public space, this Prize – the only one of its kind in Europe – is distinctive in both recognising and promoting a public space that is at once public (open and universally accessible) and urban. The Prize, in highlighting the relational and civic aspects of the typically urban space, thus differs from other initiatives that are focused on the figure of the architect, and from awards given for landscape-centred projects.
Eligibility
The criteria that will govern selection of the prize-winning projects from among those that are presented for the European Prize for Urban Public Space will not only be related with the quality of the work from a strictly architectural point of view since the jury will also consider other aspects in its evaluation of the effects of the urban transformation that has taken place in the specific setting and its impact on collective life:
- The explicitly urban nature of the intervention. The size of the city or town is not a limiting factor although priority will be given to medium-sized or large municipalities and those with a more general urban significance.
- The public ownership and/or clearly public-spirited vocation of the project.
- Appropriateness of interventions to the functions required of public space, from those directly linked with citizens’ occupation of a space, through to those pertaining to the collective imaginary.
- Capacity of the interventions to reduce social fractures within the city and eliminate physical and/or symbolic barriers in order to enhance quality of life for the inhabitants.
- Contribution of the projects in the domain of environmental improvement, in promoting public transport and innovation in the treatment of public installations, energy resources and urban waste.
- The degree of citizen participation and engagement in the conception, production and/or subsequent maintenance of the space. Degree of acceptance of the project by users.
- Transversal character of the planning concepts and/or objectives that have guided the project (sociology, demography, history, architecture, economy, engineering, landscaping, anthropology).
Award
The Prize, which is honorific by nature, is awarded jointly to the authors and promoters of the projects chosen by the Jury. The prize-winners (of the Prize itself and Honourable Mentions) will receive a Diploma confirming the award. In addition, the winner of the Prize will receive a commemorative plaque which is to be installed in the prize-winning public space.
The prize-winning works, the finalists and a selection made by the Jury will be published in the European Archive of Urban Public Space (check their website HERE), which brings together and makes available to the public the best projects that have been presented in the competition since its inception and will make part of traveling exhibition of the 2014 Prize.
Application
The deadline for applications is 23 January 2014.
The documentation required to anyone who wishes to apply for the Prize is: 3 rigid panels in DIN A3 format with graphic and textual information about the work; a description of the work, approximately 4,500 characters in length, written in English and including an account of the previous state of the site, the aim of the intervention, a description of the intervention, and a final assessment of the project; and a minimum of 10 digital photographs and plans of the work.
The participant must register online HERE. The second part of the procedure is the presentation of the physical material at the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona.
PUBLICSPACE 2014
Centro de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona
Montalegre, 5
E-08001 Barcelona, Spain
If any questions, please direct them to publicspace@publicspace.org.
For further information, visit the official website HERE.