Eighth International Student Design Competition 2010: A Memorial to a Memorable Event

Friday, March 20, 2009

Eighth International Student Design Competition 2010: A Memorial to a Memorable Event organized by CAA

Introduction

Competitors are invited to make proposals for a memorial commemorating a significant past event in their own country, or the country in which they are studying.
The event should be real and worthy of remembrance. It could be a political, sporting, cultural or historical event such as a famous speech, a battle, a protest march, sporting success, disaster, human migration, musical performance, act of bravery, revolution, strike……Certain events in history help to shape a society’s identity.
Significant events, like warsand revolutions are frequently marked with memorials and monuments, which can become cultural points of reference for that society. But many past events go unmarked and unremembered, and lose their significance.
Competitors are asked to identify such an event in their own country, for which a worthy memorial does not already exist and to submit designs for a building that will make manifest the memory.
The competition jury will be interested in ideas that explore the nature of a memorial in contemporary society and how current concerns such as environmental, social and economic sustainability, might be accommodated in its design.The memorial should be placed on a real site appropriate to the memorable event.

It will serve two purposes:

• to provide a physical point of reference with visual significance that keeps alive the memory of the event;
• to provide accommodation to house and display relevant memorabilia/interpretive material for public access and information.

The memorial might be designed as a single artefact, being a building that acts as both memorial and visitor centre; or it could be designed as a free-standing memorial set adjacent to a building accommodating material relevant to the memorable event.Solutions relying heavily on landscape would also be welcome.

Competitors are asked to consider:

• an appropriate way to commemorate an event that is perhaps strong in the memory or significant in the history of a region, but for which there may little or no evidence in the location in which it took place;
• an approach to designing with reference to a past event, which contemporary and long-lasting relevance.

Eligibility

The competition is open to all students, worldwide, who at the time of preparing their submission are registered at a Higher Education Institution. It is not limited to those studying in Commonwealth Countries. Individual and group entries are acceptable.Entries from multi-disciplinary groups are welcome. Post graduate research students and higher degree students are not eligible to take part.

Drawings with a registration form must arrive in Colombo, Sri Lanka, by midday on 29th January 2010, addressed to CAA Design Competition 2010, at the following address:

Commonwealth Association of Architects

p/s: Students, if you are interested, no harm to try.