Or how to bury the imagination

by  Jean-Pierre Chupin

If it is useless to hold a competition, if you do not believe in the virtues of emulation and collective judgment, should especially be careful to hold a contest of ideas when one fears the surprises of the imagination and experimentation. The first part of the contest of ideas Green Line (Toronto, 2012), outlined in the recent update of the CCC, the assumed exercise of ideation to generate public debate, but it is hard to understand the interest of the second component, entitled "Underpass Solutions", which required designers to stick to the "realistic'' and ''feasible ideas''. Editorials that accompany each update of the Canadian Competitions Catalogue are not written as forums for opinions and are not intended more promotion of competition they seek to praise the winners or losers console. 

By cons, as researchers devoting a significant part of our science to the documentation and understanding of competition and contemporary practices of the project, both in Canada and around the world, it behooves us to take this opportunity to emphasize that the use ideas competitions requires a minimum of respect for design teams. In its rules for international competitions, the International Union of Architects insists distinguish, perhaps unfairly, competition between ideas and projects competition. Some emphasize the misnomer, as this would imply that most projects do not contain ideas. However, it is understood that the distinction is part of a clarification of the objectives of each type of contest. 

Organize a competition for projects is always measure the feasibility and appropriateness of proposals, so it is always a form of realism, since the winning project is not necessarily the most daring and the most innovative.Adolf Loos's famous response to the great contest of the Chicago Tribune in 1922, remained in the memories just for its critical capacity, but organizers expected a good "solution" in addition to their desire to event, good professionals of the communication. For cons, the fact that a contest of ideas requires a willingness to open the question to all possible forms of responses, including, and perhaps especially, those answers that will challenge the question, site, the very idea of an achievement. 

An ideas competition, open, perhaps the best way to prepare a great project competition by allowing just a reformulation of the problem this time based on the proposals of competitors. In the case of "underground Solutions" section of the contest ideas Green Line (2012), 15 projects were received at the height of the two contradictory injunction imposed by the organizers: poor, confused, uninteresting. It was to go to these places crossing, there are at least 8 along the 5 km line electrification which crosses the city of Toronto, these underground passages, often disturbing, for which designers were invited to address the issues of mobility, security and visibility. The command stressed the need to provide "realistic and achievable" ideas, including sticking to a budget modesty, and that limit really is subject accuracy. The question was very interesting, potentially a real "question of competition", especially since it is not lack of comparable situations in the Canadian context. 

Reflect on the quality of these underpasses well worth the exercise of collective intelligence what the competition, the thing is heard. therefore what is the problem? Looking through the 15 proposals that are on the organizers' website (http://www.greenlinetoronto.ca/index.html) and we just turns to complete the documentation, we do not really find models in the proper sense the term. We find passages poorly designed (see draft horseshoe), green projects figuratively (for attempting to establish an arc of greenery is rather elegant), and green projects in the strict sense (a competitor having nothing found better than covering the lanes of a synthetic carpet green. were still found in urban markings, as we did for the first bridges to stay in the nineteenth century, the Bristol example, except that in the present case, there is an underground. then side functional and utilitarian projects, a test of "underground theater", which will be particularly troubled by the deafening noise of train passages (cutting betraying weakness we find the idea.)

On the noise level, we just found a project (winner) focusing on making acoustic walls for receiving artistic interventions. Elsewhere, another shaped wall mirror large tent to disappear behind a gateway electronic wall, or a draft device to circumvent flooding subways (or how to create a problem just before the address), and most can be found competing ideas completely inhibited by the contradictory orders of the contest at the point of regurgitating message.This is for example the case of the project "Watershed Refuge" which concludes: "The solutions take note of the fiscal realities that are now affecting municipal governments and stakeholders. These solutions are subject to filtering it is possible to produce and reproduce in other subways. "Fortunately for the world of ideas, but it did not sit well with members of the jury, several competitors have focused on the "light at the end of the tunnel" and proposed different lighting or illumination devices based passages, bystanders and situations. One plays on magnetic fields, not forgetting after all it is a large electric corridor, the other trying decomposition shaped arc-en-ciel: always useful in this type of underground, even as short. If a competition may also lead to examples not to follow the Green Line Contest "Underpass Solution" offers himself even against example of what a good contest ideas should serve . For a contest of ideas does not seek "solution", but of imagination, it seeks to validate the complexity of the issue, or even to identify the most innovative teams. The idea first! 

About Green Line Ideas Competition (Underpass Solutions)

Launched in December 2012 by Architecture Workshop in Toronto, the Green Line Ideas Competition invites architects, landscape architects, planners, artists and community members to develop a comprehensive vision for public ownership of hydro corridor 5 kilometers , extending Davenport Village in Annex neighborhood in Toronto. With over 75 project submissions, the Green Line Ideas Competition aims to demonstrate the potential of the site occupied by the hydro corridor and encourage debate on the public use of similar areas in other North American cities. By engaging community members in a process of urban design, this ideas competition consists of two parts. The first requires competitors to offer a vision of an infrastructure fragment could be transformed into an exemplary public space. The jury research projects that will: - Develop a comprehensive vision of the Green Line through its varied territory; - Identify design solutions for safe and continuous cohabitation between pedestrians and cyclists across the territory of the Green Line.Suggestions for a cycling network connecting the city of Toronto are an asset- The Green Line should be seen both as a series of community spaces and as a physical and psychological link across the city; - Because corridor passes through areas with little green space, competitors are invited to consider how to make the most of the space offered by this corridor seven days a week, throughout the year - Proposals should be durable and provide a framework for the gradual implementation of the different sections. Moreover, the second competition will take competitors to provide an improved design of the intersection of the Underground Railroad vis-à-vis Dovercourt Road and Avenue Geary. The design could be a prototype for eight underpasses along the route of the Green Line. The criteria for this second competition are: - Provide detailed in order to improve the safety and mobility of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists design; - Establish a physical connection, visual and / or psychological improvement for the Green Line; - Develop a design for a place that can serve as a model for the other eight underpasses along the Green Line; - Proposals for the second competition should be realistic and achievable. Solutions made ??with a modest budget could be preferred. Helena Grdadolnik, Associate Director at Design Workshop and organizer of the contest, see the support of the Green Line as a way to awaken the imagination of the public and convince the City of develop a master plan to guide future investments in the creation of public spaces. "Imagine our electricity infrastructure as a Green Line; a continuous link for pedestrians and cyclists through the city center as well as a public space and recreational facilities for many Toronto neighborhoods that are connected to it, "says Grdadolnik. (Text CRC)  

Jury

Evan Castel,Phd Candidate

Diana Gerrard ,Landscape Architect

Joe Lobko,Architect

Shown Micallef,Editor

Netami Stuart,Landscape Architect

> via ccc.umontreal.ca