Parque del Lago International Idea Competition

The Metropolitan Municipality of Quito, the Corporation for Environmental Health “Vida para Quito”, and the Architects’ Association of Pichincha-Ecuador, are implementing the Open International Competition for Ideas in urban planning, architecture and landscape architecture for the design of Quito´s Lake Park (Parque del Lago). The Competition Site is currently the location of the Mariscal Sucre International Airport, in the cities’ north. This Competition seeks to obtain holistic proposals that allow: the reconfiguration of the urban development policies and tendencies of the northern zone, the promotion of urban improvement processes, the solution for the limitations of northern Quito’s transversal connectivity (east – west), the reduction of environmental liabilities, the promotion of the recuperation of the landscape and urban environment, and the generation of well-being and social integration in public spaces.

Category Idea Competition
Type International, Idea, Open, Single-Stage, Anonymous
Genre Architecture, Landscape, Urban
Country Quito, Ecuador
RegDeadline 26 September 2008 GoogleCal iCal
17 October 2008 (Must be Received) GoogleCal
Eligibility Multidisciplinary teams headed by or represented by architects, urbanists and urban designers

Description
Quito, capital of the Republic of Ecuador and the first city in the world to be designated by UNESCO as a Cultural World Heritage Site (1978), has a population nearing two million inhabitants. The morphology, infrastructure and growth of the city are uniquely exigent to the geography of the zone, a population settled and growing within an inter-Andean longitudinal valley.

In order to improve international connectivity of the city and the region, the Municipality of the Metropolitan District of Quito is constructing a new airport in Tababela Parrish, which will be operable in the second half of 2010. Simultaneously, this signifies the closure of the current airport located within Quito, Mariscal Sucre International Airport and its conversion into a park as proposed by the municipal authorities.

The closure of Mariscal Sucre has several implications: a) a significant impact on the northern zone with reverberations across the entire city due to the relocation of all airport activities; b) changes in the use of the ground, mobility and circulation; and c) the availability of an “urban vacuum” of great proportions.

The accessibility to 126 hectares of new territory within the middle of the northern zone of the city is a rare opportunity to re-conceptualize the city: a) to extend the endowment of public spaces of recreation, leisure and meeting spaces for the citizens, with a facility of metropolitan scale with a renewed contemporary character and that at same time that recuperates the landscape of the site; b) improves east - west urban connectivity for the zone; c) allows for readjustment of the urban fabric affected by years of restrictions due to airport activity; and d) improve and repair environmental conditions.

In this context, the Municipality of the Metropolitan District of Quito and the Corporation of Environmental Health of Quito, “Vida para Quito”, along with the Architects’ Association of Ecuador - Pichincha Province, have decided to launch “An Open International Competition for Ideas” to design the “Parque del Lago” (Lake Park) on the site of the current Mariscal Sucre International Airport. And at the same time, these actors are promoting the most ambitious and detailed program for urban development in the city, where eco-urbanism finds applications through processes of reconfiguring the city.

Jury
Jordi Borja Sebastià (Spanish geographer and town planner)
Henry Carrión Williams (Ecuadorian architect)
Rosa Grena Kliass (Brazilian architect and landscape planner)
Anuradha Mathur (Hindu architect)
Charles Waldheim (Canadian architect)

Prize
First Prize: USD 40,000.00
Second Prize: USD 20,000.00
Third Prize: USD 10,000.00
Merit Awards: Diploma

Scope: The expected results of the Competition are to receive ideas that contribute to the realization of the Parque del Lago (Lake Park) project, in accordance with the Guidelines for Design delineated in the Design Brief.

Entry Fee
USD 200.00

Entries
6 A1 boards

Timetable
Result announcement: October 27, 2008

Organizer
Metropolitan Municipality of Quito

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