What makes the city around us move? How could we be put the city to the best use? How to best distribute the streetspace between different users? What, out of the existing urban pattern around us, could be used for our lives today and for future utopias?

Tallinn Architecture Biennale has announced the vision competition “Epicentre of Tallinn” to find a design solution for intersections in the future, when only self-driving ?cars will drive on the city streets. The international one-stage architecture competition invites entries by the end of May. 

Tallinn’s central traffic junction, the Viru intersection, was chosen as the test site. The vision competition seeks answers to the questions how driverless cars will alter the cityscape and the public space, and what will be the idea of the new public space.

The curator of the vision competition Alvin Järving says, that Viru Square is especially suitable for the competition, being the epicentre of Tallinn where historic, current and future fields of action meet – the medieval Old Town, the old industrial quarter of Rotermann, the Soviet modernist hotel Viru and contemporary architecture: “Today the square is cut off from the city space, it is just traffic area – but what could be done with the Viru Square in the future when the cars will drive without a driver?” The technological change gives the junction a chance to become a city square once again. The TAB Vision Competition wants to rethink the Viru intersection both on the functional as well as symbolic level. Architects should rearrange traffic and plan new functions but also create a symbolic focal point of the self-driving city and a real space.
 
TAB Tallinn vision competition is organised in cooperation by the Estonian Centre of Architecture and Tallinn City. It invites architects, landscape architects, urbanists and students from all those fields to propose ideas and methods about how to improve the quality of public space in one of the hotspots of Tallinn. TAB Tallinn vision competition is curated by Arhitekt Must.
 
The jury, consisting of director and founder of MVRDV Winy Maas, Tallinn City Architect Endrik Mänd and Villem Tomiste from the Union of Estonian Architects will judge the entries to the competition. The works will be presented at the exhibition in the atrium of Viru Keskus shopping centre from 9th September to 4th October and as a digital mapping at Viru Square – the actual object and venue of the competition. The winning entries are awarded with monetary prizes.

Prizes

1st Prize – €4,000

2nd Prize – €2,000

3rd Prize – €1,000

+ five honorary mentions

A separate prize will be given to the people’s choice. 

In 2015, TAB Vision Competition will be taking place for the third time. The first TAB vision competition back in 2011 was titled Street 2020. Participants were invited to interpret and describe a diverse cityscape which would connect, be compatible and enable seamless transition – all in the example of one street. 35 entries were received in time, of which 34 complied with the conditions of the competition. There were participants from all over, including Japan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Italy, Poland, the US, Austria, Lithuania, Estonia. More information here. 

Tallinn Architecture Biennale takes place from 9th September to 18th October 2015. It will look into the changes, challenges and opportunities that our cities and their inhabitants will be facing once the third industrial revolution is implemented in full scale and we all start using self-driving cars. What will this mean for architects, designers, urban planners? TAB will turn Tallinn into a test site for the cities of the future.

> via tab.ee/vision-competition