Call for Entries: ReSource

Call for Entries
The Architectural League Prize
for Young Architects + Designers
ReSource
(formerly known as the Young Architects Forum)

Competition Deadline
February 8, 2010

Young Architects and Designers Committee
Cristina Goberna
Jinhee Park
Ben Pell

Jury
Matilda McQuaid
Calvin Tsao
Billie Tsien
Dan Wood
Alejandro Zaera-Polo

Call for Entries
Young architects and designers are invited to submit work to the annual Architectural League Prize Competition. Projects of all types, either theoretical or real and executed in any medium, are welcome. The jury will select work for presentation in public programs, an on-line installation, podcasts, and an exhibition in late spring 2010. Winners will receive a cash prize of $1,000, as well as an additional stipend for transportation determined at set levels based on the applicant’s proximity to New York. A catalogue of winning work will be published by the Architectural League and Princeton Architectural Press.

The Architectural League Prize is an annual competition, series of lectures, and exhibition organized by the Architectural League and its Young Architects + Designers committee. The Prize (formerly known as the Young Architects Forum) was established to recognize specific works of high quality and to encourage the exchange of ideas among young people who might otherwise not have a forum. For work by past winners, please click here.

Theme: ReSource
Architectural practice relies on resources: disciplinary resources, such as theory and technique; physical resources, such as materials and production technologies; and practical resources, such as coordination, planning, and financing. However, recent global shifts – from the financial crisis to the environmental crisis – are demanding that architects and designers rethink their resources, producing new approaches, techniques, and even terminology within our discipline.

This call for entries asks: In what ways is our discipline proving itself resourceful in the face of these challenges? How have young practices redefined themselves, from new models of professional practice, to emergent theoretical approaches or techniques of construction? Are architects and designers by necessity becoming better at sourcing materials and techniques to meet both a heightened environmental consciousness –looking ‘beyond the green’– and the current economic sobriety? Or are they turning to models outside of the discipline for sources of inspiration, novelty, and change?

It’s time for a pause, for a reflection; for measuring outdated paths to salvage what remains valid and relevant, while simultaneously reinventing our resources anew within an uncertain context. It’s time to resource architecture.

Eligibility
Entrants may submit as individuals or as a group of individuals. If the individual(s) is/are the sole principal(s) of a firm, the firm name will be listed as a winner as well. Entrants must submit work done independently; no work done as an employee of a firm, where the entrant is not a principal or partner, is eligible for submission. Entrants must be within ten years of graduation from an undergraduate or graduate program. Students enrolled in a doctoral program beyond a first professional degree are eligible to apply; however, no student work completed for any academic program or degree is eligible for submission. Educators may not include work done in their studios. Past Young Architects Forum winners are ineligible. If only one partner of a firm is eligible, he or she can enter as a single entrant. He or she must include a signed document from all other partners outlining the collaborative nature of the work and the firm will not be listed as a recipient of the Prize. Collaborative work between unrelated firms or individuals is eligible if the partnership is equal and any project with collaborators must include a signed document from the other collaborator(s) describing the collaborative nature of the work. Collaborative work will be considered within the context of an individual’s complete portfolio.

The competition is open to residents, who need not be citizens, of the United States, Canada, and Mexico only – residency must be met six out of the twelve months preceding the portfolio deadline. There is no restriction on where submitted projects, speculative or built, are located.

Entry Forms
Entry Form
Partner Acknowledgement Form
Collaborator Acknowledgement Form

Competition Deadline
February 8, 2010
Entries must be received at the League office by 5 p.m. or postmarked by this date. There will be no exceptions to this deadline. The League cannot be responsible for entries received by mail after the jury date, which will be approximately a week after the deadline.

Submission requirements
The competition theme is given as a basis for young architects and designers to reflect upon and reevaluate their work. A written statement not to exceed 250 words is requested, which defines and considers the work under the rubric of the competition theme. Significant weight is given to how an applicant’s work addresses the theme. A single portfolio, which may include several projects, must be bound and no larger than 11” x 14”. The portfolio may not contain more than thirty doublesided pages. CDs, models, slides, and transparencies will not be accepted. Entries must be received at the League office by 5 p.m. February 8, 2010 or postmarked by that date.

Each entrant must submit an entry fee of $25. Entrants may submit cash or a check payable to “The Architectural League of New York.”

Each submission must include an entry form. Insert form, intact, into an unsealed envelope attached to the inside back cover of the submission. To maintain anonymity, no identification of the entrant may appear on any part of the submission, except on the entry form and return envelope (see below).

Portfolios will be returned by mail only if a self-addressed envelope with postage is also enclosed. Please ensure that return postage does not expire before August 2010. The Architectural League assumes no liability for original drawings. The League will take every precaution to return submissions intact, but can assume no responsibility for loss or damage. Portfolios may be discarded after six months if no return envelope is provided.

The Architectural League
of New York
594 Broadway, Suite 607
New York, New York 10012

For more information, email info@archleague.org or call 212.753.1722 x13. To download a copy of The Architectural League Prize call for entries click here.

Selection
Winning entrants will be notified by mid-March 2010.

Sponsors
The Architectural League prize sponsors include Dornbracht, Ibex Construction, LEF Foundation, Susan Grant Lewin Associates, and Tischler und Sohn.

League programs are made possible, in part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.