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| Schindler Award jury names top ten projects  The international jury judging the Schindler Award for Architecture 2007/08 "Access for All" has nominated ten projects. These will be presented at the Award ceremony in Lucerne on November 14, 2008. One winner and four runners-up will be awarded cash prizes at the ceremony and three schools' prizes will also be announced. The jury also made special mention of four additional projects because of their insights into the issue of accessibility. The ten top projects were chosen from a total of 125 submitted by student teams from schools of architecture in Europe. That compares with 88 projects submitted for the previous Schindler Award in 2005/06.The competition task was to revitalize a derelict area of the Austrian capital, Vienna. Amid its impressive city planning, Vienna has its share of derelict areas. At the intersection of the western belt (Westgürtel) and the Vienna River Valley (Wiental), two major city thoroughfares, two metro lines and the channeled Vienna River enclose a large, neglected area, divorced from the hustle and bustle of city life. An impressive steel-trussed metro bridge by Otto Wagner towers above this waste land and mesh of urban infrastructure. With imaginative repositioning and some adjustments to the traffic infrastructure participants should be able to bring the existing potential of the site to life. The competition aims at improvements that will transform this neglected site into an attractive place of public activity and give a positive impulse to the revival of the adjoining residential and business areas. Participants are required to incorporate four elements into their projects: a public common, residential buildings, a community center and a riverside park with outdoor sport facilities. The aim is to create space that meets three criteria: Quality of life, Sustainability, and Economic viability / Environmental Economics. The jury also made special mention of four projects. These did not fulfil the requirements to be nominated but came up with new and interesting ideas about how to improve mobility for disabled people in urban spaces. write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Construction News :: home page |