Innovative design competition imagines a city without carsEntrantsto the Greening Bay design competition, introduced by RambollWhitbybird, were asked to “imagine if there were no cars in London –what would we do with all the parking spaces?” The resulting designsranged from the masterful to the mad. The firm were inspired to create the competition following an exhibitin San Francisco which saw residents in a small block waking up to anurban park where cars where usually parked outside their homes. Thechosen 14 finalists, together with an army of helpers, will now takepart in an overnight ambush on a Camden street creating their designsbefore the sun rises on the 4th July. The event, which takes place aspart of the London Festival of Architecture, will create ‘sustainableurban interventions’ designed to remind us ‘just how much space we giveup to the car in our city’. While some chose to integrate the car theme into their small designs,others took an alternative approach creating explicitly separatedesigns illustrating the capacity for a fresh look on the city’s urbanlandscape. Think Tyres Tank merges the two approaches to the project inboth title and design with a vibrant seating area constructed to mimicunravelling tyres; Draughts Game encourages the public to consider anironic approach to roadworks as a parking slot is transformed into adraughts game composed of traffic cones; while Urban Tree Parkconsiders the possibility of a functional space using natural materialsto create a multi-level park complete with wind turbine and storagearea. All the entries were judged by a panel including Dr Ken Yeang and KevinCarmody, Director of Young Architect of the Year Award winning practiceCarmody Groarke. The judges were asked to mark each design out of tenin three areas - the quality of design, use of sustainable materialsand buildability.Peter Murray, Director of the London Festival of Architecture said, “Weall know that the days of the car in the city are numbered. It is veryencouraging to see so many imaginative ideas from young designers forusing the left over space from the demise of the internal combustionengine.”The final designs, as listed below, will be available to view at StoreStreet, London WC1, on Friday 4 July between 7am and 10pm where anoverall winner will be chosen.
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