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1. Description

At its narrowest, the Strait of Hormuz is only 39 kilometers or 21 nautical miles wide. At its widest, a world apart. A strategic chokepoint, it is the only sea connection between the Gulf and the ocean; one fifth of all global oil shipments pass through it each year. The Strait of Hormuz is crucial to the economies of the future: 85% of those barrels head towards the Asian powerhouses of India, China, South Korea and Japan.

This is an open call for an international architectural competition that bridges this narrow/wide gap, and envisions the geopolitical future of the Strait of Hormuz. The competition seeks proposals for a bridge or other structure that connects both coasts/sides of the Gulf. Speculation and design fiction are welcome. Entries should keep in mind the traces of a post-petroleum future.

What if we by-pass the Silk Route to connect Africa and Asia?

The open competition, hosted by the Gulf Architecture Biennial, aims to generate new new new architectural ideas. There are no plans for the Hormuz Bridge to be built.

2. Requirements

This is a single stage competition. We encourage applications from architects, engineers, writers, artists, students, and especially, interdisciplinary teams. Selected entries will be published in the first volume of the Gulf Architecture Biennial and exhibited publically.  No registration or fee is required. Teams can submit more than one entry.  All submissions are accepted digitally by email addressed to:

[email protected]

Participants must submit:

1.  Word Document: 800 to 1000 words text that describes the proposal, entry title, team member names and contact details.
2.  Two A2 Panels (594×420 mm or 23.4×16.5 in), format PDF, JPEG or TIFF. CMYK in 300 dpi. The Panels must not include any team member name, just the entry title.

3. Calendar

•  Competition launch:  12 November 2013
•  Submission deadline: 01 February 2014
•  Results announcement:  15 February 2014
•  Publication launch: 02 March 2014

4. Awards

• 1st Award 750 USD
• 2nd Award 500 USD
• 3rd Award 250 USD

The rest of the selected entries will be published in the first volume of the Gulf Architecture Biennial.

 5. FAQ

• The Hormuz Bridge is conceived as ideas competition and therefore speculation and design fiction are welcome
• One phase competition
• Submission boards must be labeled with a code or entry title selected by the competitors
• The specific location of the bridge / structure within the strait to be propose by the competitors
• No Autocad file or other documentation is provided
• Online submission to [email protected]
• If the submission files are bigger than 10 MB we recommend to use Wetransfer (www.wetransfer.com) or any similar service
• The submission deadline has been postponed
• Submission deadline:      01 February 2014
• Results announcement:  15 February 2014
• Publication launch:           02 March 2014

If you have any comment or doubt contact [email protected]

> via gulfarchitecturebiennial.com