10th Arquine International Architecture Competition

Result

Winner announced. Click here to view online gallery.

Overview

Theme: The Bicentennial Towers - Design of two skyscrapers, with 100 floors each, to celebrate the bicentenary of Mexico’s independence in 2010.

Description
Thirty years on from the publication of Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas’s manifesto celebrating congestion culture, at the peak of the high building craze in most of the world, and moving on from post 9-11 panic, Arquine announces its 10th International Competition, proposing the design of two skyscrapers, with 100 floors each, to celebrate the bicentenary of Mexico’s independence in 2010.

The skyscraper and the open chapel are two typologies of genuinely American origin.

The challenge of imagining a new function for the skyscraper (beyond phallic-formal exhibitionism) invites us to enrich the controversy over the leap in urban scale as a means to the Mexican capital’s necessary densification.

The project consists in setting each tower in two strategic areas of Mexico City: the Azcapotzalco Technology Park and the Xochimilco Ecology Park, establishing a dialectic between content and void; between built object and urban landscape.

The competition invites you to embark on the projects with two relevant discourses in mind: ecology and technology, true paradigms of early 21st-century culture.

The towers should favour mixed uses (permanent or temporary housing, offices, workshops, businesses, etc.) and blur the limits between the public and private domains.

Program
Each of the bicentennial towers should develop on a maximum built surface of 150,000 m2 (excluding underground levels), and include the following program:
Housing, min. 20%
Offices, min. 30%
Businesses, min. 10%
Hotel, min. 20%
Auditorium, min. 5%
Terraces, min. 5%
Parking, min. 20%

In the technology tower the use of new technologies and building materials should be favoured, focused on reducing energy consumption and producing energy from renewable sources.

In the ecological tower the use of sustainable design and biocompatible materials should be favoured.

Jury
Guy Nordenson
Francisco Serrano
Jose Castillo
Michel Rojkind
Alejandro Aravena

Judging Process
One-Stage, Anonymous Competition

Prize
1st place: $100.000 pesos

Entry Fee
15 October - 31 December 2007 $800* Mexican pesos (Mexico), $100 USD (International)
*Including a year’s subscription to the magazine inside Mexico
01 January - 04 February 2008 $1.000 Mexican pesos (Mexico), $120 USD (International)

Winning projects will be published on the Arquine webpage and in issue 44 of the magazine (June 2008).

Entries
Two 90 x 60 cm (A1) laminates on stiff light boards

Timetable
The jury will meet in Mexico City during the 9th Arquine Congress (March 12th, 2008), where the awarding will take place and the winning projects will be exhibited. They will be published on the Arquine webpage and in issue 44 of the magazine (June 2008).

Promoter
Arquine

Official Website
http://www.arquine.com/