Related posts:

1. Call for Proposals: Folly
2. Folly FAQs
3. Civic Action: A Vision For Long Island City
4. Modern Sculpture for Architecture

About
The Architectural League Prize is one of North America’s most prestigious awards for young architects.

The Prize is an annual portfolio competition organized by the Architectural League and its Young Architects and Designers Committee.  The committee, a group selected each year from past winners of the League Prize, is responsible for developing the program’s theme and selecting competition jurors.   This year’s theme, No Precedent, reflects the committee’s perception of young architects’ careers as “suggestive, speculative, and on the brink.”  The committee called for “ideas, works, and methodologies that are unfounded, ungrounded, and suspect…the things no one has done before, and that one has little experience with.”  Open to designers ten years or less out of school, the competition draws entrants from around North America. Winners of the Award will lecture in June and display their work in an exhibition on view through the summer.  Their work will also be published in the Young Architects series, jointly published by Princeton Architectural Press and the Architectural League, and their ideas will be distributed by the League in podcasts and original interviews.

This yearʼs jury consisted of Toshiko Mori, Gregg Pasquarelli, Lisa Phillips, Annabelle Selldorf, and Robert Somol.  Committee members were Emily Abruzzo, Dominic Leong, and Michael Loverich.  The program is directed by League Program Director Anne Rieselbach.

The 2012 League Prize is awarded to:

Jorge Arvizu, Ignacio del Rio, Emmanuel Ramirez, and Diego Ricalde, MMX Studio, Mexico City

Jimenez Lai, Bureau Spectacular, Chicago

Sean Lally, WEATHERS / Sean Lally, Chicago

Seung Teak Lee and Mi Jung Lim, STPMJ, Brooklyn

Michael Szivos, SOFTlab, New York

Koji Tsutsui, Koji Tsutsui & Associates, San Francisco and Tokyo

For information on this year’s lecture series featuring the winning firms, click here.  For information on the exhibition, click here.  For information on the original Call for Entries, click here.

Support
The League Prize is generously supported by Dornbracht, Susan Grant Lewin Associates, and Tischler und Sohn.  The program is also supported by the Next Generation Fund of the Architectural League.

Architectural League programs are additionally supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Related posts:

1. 2011 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers:
   It’s Different
2. Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers 2010: ReSource
3. 2010 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers:
   ReSource
4. 2010 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers:
   ReSource

Deborah J. Norden Fund
Travel/Study Grants
Call for Applications

Application Deadline
April 16, 2012

About the Norden Fund
The Deborah J. Norden Fund, established in 1995 in memory of architect and arts administrator Deborah Norden, awards a total of up to $5,000 annually in travel/study grants to students and recent graduates in the fields of architecture, architectural history, and urban studies. For a list of past winners, click here.

The Deborah J. Norden Fund is administered by the Architectural League of New York.

How to Apply
Applicants must submit a proposal (maximum three pages), which succinctly describes the objectives of the grant request and how it will contribute to the applicant’s intellectual and creative development. The grant amount requested (up to $5,000) must be specified. The submission should also include a résumé of not more than two pages and a projected project schedule and budget for travel and other costs. An addendum of not more than four pages may include images, maps, or other supporting material.  Two letters of recommendation must be requested from individuals who are knowledgeable about the applicant’s ability and project.

Eligibility
The fund may award one or more grants. Applicants must reside in the U.S., Canada, or Mexico. The application process is extremely competitive. The intention of the fund is to support genuinely independent projects that require travel. Grant funds cannot be used for tuition, and grants will not be awarded to support an individual’s participation in an organized program, such as a university’s summer abroad program. While requests for support of dissertation research will be considered, they are not a priority of the fund. Preference will be given to strong proposals from applicants who have not had this sort of opportunity before.

Submission Requirements
Applicants must submit their proposal, résumé, schedule and budget, and optional addendum, digitally as letter-size PDFs. The applicant’s name and project title must appear on the first page of the proposal. PDFs should be emailed to Gabriel Silberblatt, at silberblatt@archleague.org by midnight April 16, 2012. Faxed or mailed applications will not be accepted. Late applications will not be accepted. The two letters of recommendation should be sent by the recommenders directly to the Architectural League by mail or email PDF; letters of recommendation must be received or postmarked by April 16, 2012.

Letters of recommendation should be sent to:

Deborah J. Norden Fund
The Architectural League
of New York
594 Broadway, Suite 607
New York, NY 10012.

PDF recommendations should be emailed to: silberblatt@archleague.org.

Announcement
Awards will be announced in early June 2012.

Publication
Travel Reports from the Deborah J. Norden Fund, a publication documenting the first ten years of Norden Fund grants, was published in January 2007. For more information, click here.

For more information
Email silberblatt@archleague.org or call 212.753.1722 x10.

Image courtesy of Remy Bertin

Related posts:

1. Deborah J. Norden Fund Established
2. Norden Winner Yutaka Sho
3. Travel Reports
4. Past Norden Fund Winners

The Architectural League’s annual Emerging Voices Award spotlights North American individuals and firms with distinct design “voices” that have the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design.  The jury reviews significant bodies of realized work that represent the best of their kind, and address larger issues of architecture, landscape, and the built environment.  This year’s jury included Henry Cobb, Paul Lewis, Geoff Manaugh, Jamie Maslyn Larson, Annabelle Selldorf, Claire Weisz, and Dan Wood.

The 2012 Emerging Voices are:

5468796 architecture, Winnipeg
Manon Asselin and Katsuhiro Yamazaki, Atelier TAG, Montreal
Jose Castillo and Saidee Springall, arquitectura911sc, Mexico City
Jeffrey Inaba, INABA, Los Angeles and New York
Christos Marcopoulos and Carol Moukheiber, Studio NMinusOne, Toronto
Kate Orff and Elena Brescia, SCAPE / Landscape Architecture, New York
Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu, Oyler Wu Collaborative, Los Angeles
Jinhee Park and John Hong , SsD, New York, Boston, and Seoul

For information on this year’s lecture series featuring the winning firms, click here.

Emerging Voices is generously supported by Maharam. The Emerging Voices program is also supported by the Next Generation Fund of the Architectural League.

Architectural League programs are additionally supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Related posts:

1. 2005 Emerging Voices
2. 2004 Emerging Voices
3. 2003 Emerging Voices
4. 2011 Emerging Voices

Competition Deadline
February 15, 2012

Jury
Toshiko Mori
Gregg Pasquarelli
Lisa Phillips
Annabelle Selldorf
Robert Somol

and the Young Architects and Designers Committee
Emily Abruzzo
Dominic Leong
Michael Loverich

Architectural League Program Director
Anne Rieselbach

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 fora, an on-line installation, podcasts, and in an exhibition in June 2012. Winners will receive a cash prize of $1,000. 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 a list of past winners, click here.

Theme: No Precedent
You’re not new and you aren’t different.
You’re definitely not shocking and you are full of bullshit.
You just don’t fit in.
You’re on the brink but they just don’t understand.
You’re unbelievable.
You are without precedent.

Driven by the desire to create, to be heard, to keep busy or to fulfill untapped and forbidden niches, young architects are a self-defining generation. They are unwilling to wait their turn or to follow in footsteps. It has become normative for young architects to cast aside unfit precedents, codes, rules, and primitives, restlessly defining their projects, their problems, their methodologies, their users, and their spaces of intervention. Their work becomes uncategorizable, suggestive, and speculative; it’s on the brink. It’s neither here nor there, but fodder for the future.

It is risky traveling in uncharted waters. What does it take to create and support something without precedent? What must be constructed in order to convincingly communicate an idea? How do these new territories influence the way we work and what we produce? Inherent to the realization of these ideas is the willingness to work, to test again and again, negotiate, and work through problems: mockups, models, tests, prototypes become essential.

Ideas, works, and methodologies that are unfounded, ungrounded, and suspect are of interest here: the things no one has done before, and that one has little experience with.

How do you build it?
How do you permit it?
How do you draw it?
How do you talk about it?
How do you write about it?
How do you think about it?
How do you erase it?
How do you make it unknown?
How is it unprecedented?

Eligibility
Entrants must 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 of either an undergraduate or graduate degree. No student work completed for any academic program or degree is eligible for submission. Educators may not include work done in their studios or for their teaching. 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) outlining 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 full-time residents, who need not be citizens, of the United States, Canada, and Mexico only.

Entry forms
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.

Entry Form
Partner Acknowledgement Form
Collaborator Acknowledgement Form

Competition Deadline February 15, 2012
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 required, 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 double-sided pages. CDs, models, slides, and transparencies will not be accepted. Entries must be received at the League office by 5 p.m. February 15, 2012 or postmarked by that date.

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

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

Portfolio return
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 2012. 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 one year if no return envelope is provided.

Questions
For more information, email info@archleague.org or call 212.753.1722 x10. To download a copy of The Architectural League Prize call for entries click here.

Selection
Winning entrants will be notified by mid-March 2012.

Sponsors
The Architectural League Prize is supported by Dornbracht, Susan Grant Lewin Associates, and Tischler und Sohn.  Additional funding is made possible from the Next Generation Fund, an alumni fund of the Architectural League’s Emerging Voices and Architectural League Prize programs.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.  The Architectural League Prize is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Related posts:

1. Call for Entries: It’s Different
2. Call for Entries: ReSource
3. Call for Proposals: Folly
4. Call for Essays: The Unfinished Grid

Call for Essays: The Unfinished Grid
A juried competition held by Urban Omnibus, the Architectural League’s online publication

The competition is in connection to the pair of exhibitions organized by the Museum of the City of New York and the Architectural League that celebrate the 200th anniversary of the plan that established Manhattan’s street grid

Competition Deadline
Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Click here to download a PDF of this Call for Essays.

Description
How does the Manhattan street grid determine your experience of the city?

How does it affect your understanding of what a city is, what a city does, how you move through a city?

How does it embed itself in defining aspects of daily life in New York City: destinations, neighborhoods, intersections, commutes; where and how we live, work, explore, or enjoy the city?

This year, the Commissionersʼ Plan, the framework that established Manhattanʼs famous street grid, celebrates its 200th anniversary. In honor of that event, and in connection with two exhibitions on the history and future of the grid, Urban Omnibus is soliciting essays that reflect on the Manhattan street grid as paradigm, rubric, or muse for urban life. A jury of prominent designers, urbanists, writers, and thinkers will review submissions. Up to three winning entries will be published on UrbanOmnibus.net and will receive a monetary award ($500 for first place; $250 for up to two second place winners). The essays submitted to this competition may reference either New York Cityʼs speculative futures or its storied past, but in either case, essays should reflect on its contemporary reality. A strong personal voice is encouraged. Essays can range from stories that take Manhattanʼs numbered streets and avenues as points of departure to journalistic descriptions of place-based urban subcultures to theoretical treatises on infrastructure, property, or density.

The prize-winning essays selected for publication will complement a pair of exhibitions presented by the Museum of the City of New York and the Architectural League of New York that commemorate the Manhattan grid and explore its evolving legacy. The exhibitsʼ premise is that the grid has been subject to countless adaptations and transformations over the past 200 years and will be subject to more urban innovation in the years to come. The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011, curated by Hillary Ballon, explores the 200 years since the creation of that foundational plan through the lens of the gridʼs enduring impact on land use, real estate and the public realm. The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan, curated by Gregory Wessner, displays eight design proposals – selected from a pool of over 120 submissions from around the world – that project ways “to act on and within the grid to respond to the challenges and opportunities… that New York faces now and into the future.” The essays will contribute personal, reflective, and contemporary voices into this conversation about the past, present, and future of New York City. Writers interested in submitting work are encouraged to view the exhibitions as they shape their essays.

With this competition, Urban Omnibus seeks to advance its dedication to redefining the culture of citymaking by inviting writers to interpret a system that influences so many aspects of urban life, and yet is rarely considered in evocative or creative non-fiction writing.

Award
The jury will select one first-prize essay, whose author will receive an award of $500. Up to two second place winners will receive prizes of $250 each.

Submission Instructions
Essays should be between 800 and 2000 words; suggestions of imagery that supports or illustrates each essay are strongly encouraged.

Email submissions as attachments to info@urbanomnibus.net with GRID: ESSAY SUBMISSION as the subject line. Please include your name at the top of the document.

Submissions must be received by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 1, 2012.

Questions about this call for essays can be sent to info@urbanomnibus.net.

Eligibility
Staff and board members of the Architectural League and the Museum of the City of New York are not eligible for this competition.

Jury (list in formation)
Ken Chen, Executive Director, Asian American Writersʼ Workshop
Rosalie Genevro, Executive Director, Architectural League
Sina Najafi, Editor, Cabinet
Michael Sorkin, architect, urban designer, writer
Nicola Twilley, author, Edible Geography and Co-Director, Studio-X New York
Cassim Shepard, Editor, Urban Omnibus
Varick Shute, Managing Editor, Urban Omnibus
Gregory Wessner, Special Projects Director, Architectural League and curator of The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan

About the Exhibitions
The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011 celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Commissionersʼ Plan of 1811, the foundational document that established Manhattanʼs famous street grid. Featuring an original hand-drawn map of New Yorkʼs planned streets and avenues prepared by the Commission in 1811, as well as other rare historic maps, photographs, and prints of the evolution of the cityʼs streets, and original manuscripts and publications that document the cityʼs physical growth, the exhibition examines the gridʼs initial design, implementation, and evolution. The Greatest Grid traces the enduring influence of the 1811 plan as the grid has become a defining feature of the city, shaping its institutions, and public life.

The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan took the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Commissionersʼ Plan, the Architectural League, in partnership with the Museum of the City of New York and Architizer, issued an international Call for Ideas, inviting architects and designers from around the world to speculate about how Manhattanʼs grid might be adapted, extended, or transformed in the future. How might the grid accommodate growth or make possible new types of buildings; how could it be modified to respond to climate change or new transportation technologies? The Unfinished Grid presents eight proposals, selected by a jury of architects and historians, which offer provocative speculations for the future city. Proposals range from inserting a new north-south avenue, in order to introduce new street-level public spaces, to appropriating intersections as sites for new kinds of development, to envisioning fantastical vertical cities that claim the sky above Manhattan as a new realm for inhabitation. Together the proposals do not describe a literal vision of the future, but suggest the immense possibilities and catalytic power the grid still holds, after two hundred years, for organizing urban life and stimulating the imaginations of architects and urbanists.

Both exhibitions are on view through April 15, 2012 at the Museum of the City of New York.

Related posts:

1. The Unfinished Grid:
   Speculations for Manhattan
2. The Unfinished Grid:
   Design Speculations for Manhattan
3. The Greatest Grid:
   A Call for Ideas
4. Talking Books:
   The Scenes of the Street and Other Essays

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
FOLLY
A project organized by Socrates Sculpture Park and the Architectural League

Click here for information about the winning entry from this competition.

DEADLINE: January 16, 2012 The deadline for this competition has passed. Submissions are no longer being accepted.

Click here to download this Call for Proposals.
Click here to read the FAQs.

DESCRIPTION
Socrates Sculpture Park and the Architectural League invite emerging architects and designers to apply for the opportunity to build and exhibit a full-scale project around the theme of an architectural Folly. This residency was established to explore the intersections between architecture and sculpture and the increasing overlaps in references, materials, and building techniques between the two disciplines.

Socrates and the League welcome proposals for full-scale projects and installations that explore contemporary interpretations of the architectural folly. By definition a fanciful architectural form, built to lend interest to a view or serve as a conversation piece, the folly is an ideal launching point for a dynamic exploration of architectural form and its relationship to sculpture. A jury of architects, artists, curators, and arts administrators will select a single project to realize at full scale within the grounds of Socrates Sculpture Park. The recipient will receive a $5,000 production grant to fund the project, as well as full access to the resources and fabrication facilities of Socrates Sculpture Park’s outdoor studio during a two-month residency at the Park, beginning in May 2012 (click here to download the equipment list). Administrative support for additional fundraising and securing in-kind contributions, if necessary, will also be available. The completed project will open to the public in July 2012.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
Applicants are strongly encouraged to visit Socrates Sculpture Park before submitting their application. Applicants must take into account the site’s rugged, urban outdoor environment and be aware that installations in the Park are subject to final approval by Socrates and League staff and must meet safety requirements to be able to withstand the effects of weather and public use.

Applicants should email the following (formatting instructions below) to folly@archleague.org no later than 11:59 p.m. on Monday, January 16, 2012.

Cover Sheet
Please include a cover sheet with your name, mailing address, telephone, email, and project title.

Project Proposal and Budget
Applicants should submit a project proposal of up to 1000 words that clearly describes the project and its relationship to the theme of the architectural folly. Renderings and sketches may be included as part of the proposal. The proposal should address plans for the reuse, recycling and dispersal of all material used in the project. A preliminary budget should also be included that identifies expenses and potential additional funding sources and in-kind donations, if necessary, beyond the production grant provided.

Current Resume/CV
The resume/CV should include information about your education; work and teaching experience; exhibition history (if applicable); awards, grants, and residencies; and other relevant information.

Digital Images/Slide Script
Up to ten (10) digital images of recent work. (These images are in addition to images submitted as part of the project proposal.) Projects may be built or proposed in any medium. A slide script with a numbered list that corresponds to the submitted images should also be included. For each image, include the title, date and a brief description of the work.

APPLICATION FORMAT AND DEADLINE
The application package should be submitted as a single PDF (8 1/2″ x 11″ page size) of not more than 15 megabytes, emailed to folly@archleague.org no later than 11:59 p.m. on Monday, January 16, 2012. Please put the project title in the subject line of the email.

AWARD, RESIDENCY AND EXHIBITION
One project will be chosen. The recipient will receive a $5,000 production grant towards realizing the proposed project. The recipient will also have full access to the studio space and fabrication resources of Socrates Sculpture Park from May 2012 to July 2012 (click here to download the equipment list). The finished project will go on view in Socrates Sculpture Park beginning in July 2012.

ELIGIBILITY
Architects and related designers are invited to apply. Applicants do not need to be registered architects. Architects and designers outside of New York City are eligible to apply but housing and transportation are not provided as part of the award. If selected, non-resident architects will have to make their own living and travel arrangements. Full-time matriculated students are not eligible to apply.

JURY
Alyson Baker, Director, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Yolande Daniels, studio SUMO
Richard Gluckman, Gluckman Mayner Architects
Christopher Leong, Leong Leong Architecture
Leo Villareal, artist

PROJECT DIRECTORS
Elissa Goldstone, Socrates Sculpture Park
Gregory Wessner, The Architectural League

SUPPORT
Folly, a partnership of Socrates Sculpture Park and The Architectural League of New York, is made possible through a generous grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Socrates Sculpture Park’s Exhibition Program is also supported by the generosity of Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Mark di Suvero, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation Spacetime C.C.

Additional support is provided, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and by public funds from the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Special thanks to the City of New York, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, City Councilmembers Jimmy Van Bramer and Peter F. Vallone Jr., and the Department of Parks & Recreation, Commissioner Adrian Benepe.

QUESTIONS

Applicants may email questions to folly@archleague.org.

Questions and answers will be posted on the Architectural League’s and Socrates Sculpture Park’s websites.

ABOUT SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK
Socrates Sculpture Park was an abandoned riverside landfill and illegal dumpsite until 1986 when a coalition of artists and community members, under the leadership of sculptor Mark di Suvero, transformed it into an open studio and exhibition space for artists and a neighborhood park for local residents. Today it is an internationally renowned outdoor museum and artist residency program that also serves as a vital New York City park offering a wide variety of free public programs. Socrates Sculpture Park is the only site in the New York Metropolitan area specifically dedicated to providing artists with opportunities to create and exhibit large-scale sculpture and multi-media installations in a unique outdoor environment that encourages |strong interaction between artists, artworks and the public. The Park’s existence is based on the belief that reclamation, revitalization and creative expression are essential to the survival, humanity and improvement of our urban environment.

www.socratessculpturepark.org

Related posts:

1. Folly FAQs
2. Call for Proposals for Event Space in Brooklyn
3. Pavilions and Follies
4. Panel Discussion on the Coliseum Site Proposals

Can non-New York residents apply? Can non-US citizens apply?
The competition is open to all architects and designers. However, please note that there are no funds available for travel and accommodations. Recipients who are outside of the New York-metro area will be expected to provide their own travel and accommodations for the two-month residency.

How long will Folly be on display? Is it permanent?
The installation is not permanent. The exact dates have not yet been confirmed, but it will be on view from July to November, 2012.

Where in the park will Folly be sited? Can I choose my own site?
The final site has not been confirmed, but will likely be one of two plots of land on the south end of the Park, which are separated from the main parkland by a wide path off of the Broadway entrance. Applicants can propose a different site within in the Park, but placement will be determined by The Architectural League’s and Socrates Sculpture Park’s staff.

How are building permits handled?
The staff of Socrates Sculpture Park will work with recipients to ensure that projects meet all necessary permitting and safety requirements.

Can I submit more than one proposal?
No. Individuals may only submit one proposal, either alone or as part of a team.

Do I need to pre-register?
No, pre-registration is not required. The deadline for submission is 11:59 p.m. on January 16, 2012.

Click here to return to the Folly Call for Proposals.

Related posts:

1. The Greatest Grid: FAQs
2. New York State Council on the Arts

Media Sponsor
Architizer

Click here to learn about the exhibition of winning projects from this Call for Ideas.

On the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan for New York, the foundational document that established the Manhattan street plan from Houston Street to 155th Street, the Architectural League invites architects, landscape architects, urban designers, and other design professionals to use the Manhattan street grid as a catalyst for thinking about the present and future of New York. For two centuries, the Manhattan street grid has demonstrated an astonishing flexibility to accommodate the architectural gestures and urban planning theories of successive generations of architects, urban designers, private developers, and city officials. Given its capacity for reinvention, how might the Manhattan grid continue to adapt and respond to the challenges and opportunities–both large and small–that New York faces now and into the future?

SUBMISSION DEADLINE
The deadline for this call for ideas was September 26. We are no longer accepting entries.

QUICK LINKS
Download Call for Ideas
FAQs

Please note: On your entry fee receipt, the Donation ID is the same as the Transaction ID.

BACKGROUND
In 1807, frustrated by years of uncontrolled development and a decade of public health epidemics attributed to lower Manhattan’s cramped and irregular streets, New York City’s Common Council (the predecessor to today’s City Council) petitioned the State Legislature to develop a street plan for Manhattan above Houston Street, at that time a rural area of streams and hills populated by a patchwork of country estates, farms, and small houses. The adoption in 1811 of the Commissioners’ Plan for New York laid out in a single bold stroke the Manhattan street plan up to 155th Street (leaving the area north of there for future planners to address). Though it would take the rest of the 19th century to build, this gridiron of twelve north-south avenues and 155 east-west streets would fundamentally shape the future of New York and become an emblem of the city itself.

In celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the Commissioners’ Plan, the Museum of the City of New York will present The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, a major exhibition curated by Hilary Ballon that traces the origins and evolution of the grid over two hundred years. As inevitable–or perhaps invisible–as it may seem to New Yorkers today, the Manhattan street plan was an act of breathtaking vision and ambition on the part of city officials and citizens alike, one that required the mobilization of vast resources and decades of sacrifice and inconvenience. Grid plans, of course, were not new; Annapolis, Philadelphia, and Savannah, to name just a few colonial examples, all used a grid in one form or another. What was notable about the Commissioners’ Plan was the relentlessness with which the grid was deployed: 2,028 seemingly identical blocks with little provision for public space and none of the expressive urban gestures then fashionable among city planners–the “circles, ovals, and stars” that, in the commissioners’ own words, “certainly embellish a plan” notwithstanding “their effect as to convenience and utility.” Moreover, the plan displayed a complete disregard for the existing topography of Manhattan, transforming what had been an island of hills, valleys, and streams into the (relatively) level plane necessitated by the straight lines of the plan’s streets and avenues.

Alternately vilified and celebrated over its two hundred years, the Manhattan grid has nonetheless demonstrated a remarkable flexibility to accommodate the architectural gestures and urban planning theories of successive generations of architects, urban designers, private developers, and city officials. Central Park and the super-block housing developments of 1960s urban renewal; Broadway and Madison and Lexington Avenues; the automobile and the subway; the skyscraper and the sliver building; the water system and the electricity grid; zoning resolutions and preservation districts–these are just some of the amendments and additions that the Commissioners’ Plan has accommodated since 1811. Given the grid’s capacity for reinvention, how might it continue to adapt and respond to the challenges and opportunities–both large and small–that New York faces now and into the future?

THE CHALLENGE
The Architectural League announces an international Call for Ideas that invites architects, landscape architects, urban designers, and other design professionals to use the Manhattan street grid as a catalyst for thinking about the present and future New York. The League will select up to ten proposals for an exhibition that will be presented at the Museum of the City of New York beginning in December 2011, concurrently with The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan.

What challenges and possibilities face the city today and how might innovative solutions emerge out of (and in turn modify) the existing street grid? We are already seeing new approaches to street use in the Bloomberg Administration’s bike lanes and pedestrian plazas. What other possibilities exist for rethinking streets that might either increase public space or encourage new kinds of uses? What new infrastructures will the city require–or what existing infrastructures might be rethought–and what impact will they have on the grid? How might responsive technologies interact with the grid to imbue it with a radically new kind of adaptability, one that changes from morning to night, or day to day? Are there ways to make more dynamic connections among the different layers of Manhattan, from the subway to the street to the tower? How can blocks be reconfigured to impact density levels or generate new building typologies? What ways can we use New York’s existing topography to better address climate change and sea level rise? Alternatively, what small-scale interventions or insertions might positively impact a single block or neighborhood? At a moment when the city’s economic and demographic diversity are under threat, how could actions on and within the grid work towards counteracting the prevailing forces that are transforming Manhattan into a pleasure ground for the rich and a tourist mecca?

Drawing on the grid’s enduring power as muse and metaphor, the League invites architects and designers to consider how the grid might provide the intellectual and creative framework for thinking about new possibilities and directions. Two hundred years ago, the Commissioners’ Plan was an act of astonishing ambition. What kinds of equally bold, visionary ideas and plans should New York undertake to sustain itself as a world capital–and what trace will they leave on the street grid?

The goal of the project is to propose new ways for thinking about how the street grid shapes life in New York, speculate on how it could continue to accommodate and respond to any number of urban imperatives, and, most importantly, to acknowledge and celebrate the fundamental contributions the Commissioners’ Plan has made to defining New York’s character and identity.

SUBMISSIONS
The League welcomes a range of proposals, from the visionary to the practical, large scale or small. Proposals may imagine new configurations of the elements that compose the grid (super block, block, lot, intersection, street, sidewalk, etc.); propose small scale insertions; suggest new building typologies or public spaces; consider the grid’s role as a node in a regional or global network; among other possibilities. Participants are welcome to focus their projects on a specific site or to address the grid as a whole. Given that the exhibition is organized to celebrate the anniversary of the Commissioners’ Plan, some part of the proposal must fall within the area of the 1811 grid (Houston to 155th Street, from river to river).  Entrants may participate as either individuals or teams, but no one may submit more than one proposal.

All entrants should submit the following:

•A Cover Sheet (PDF format), with the project title and the names and email addresses of all team members, with one team member designated as the primary contact. The donation ID (see below) for your entry fee should be included on the cover sheet.

•A Design Statement (PDF format) of no more than five hundred words that describes the project. (The cover sheet and the design statement may be one document.)

•A Design Proposal, a high-resolution (300 dpi) PDF of two pages of 24” h x 36” w (landscape format). Submissions may include process drawings, photos, maps, plans, sections, perspectives, and other visual imagery, but all submissions should include at least one view that incorporates or is based on the Manhattan street grid. Please note that depending on final exhibition requirements, some entrants may be asked to reformat their submissions for size and orientation.

ENTRY FEE
There is a required entry fee of $25 per submission. Entrants should pay the fee online here, after which an automatic receipt will be emailed to entrants with a transaction ID. Please include transaction ID on the cover sheet for your submission.

ELIGIBILITY
This Call for Ideas is open to all architects, urban designers, landscape architects, and all other design professionals. Students are ineligible for participation.

DEADLINE
All submissions must be emailed via yousendit or comparable file sharing service to grid@archleague.org no later than 11:59 p.m. on September 26, 2011. Please put the project title in the subject line.

SELECTION AND AWARDS
Up to ten submissions will be chosen by the jury for exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. The selected teams will receive an honorarium of $1,000 each. Winners will be announced in mid-October. The exhibition will open in early December.

JURY
Amale Andraos, WORKac
Hilary Ballon, Curator, The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan
Sarah Henry, Chief Curator, Museum of the City of New York
Wendy Evans Joseph, Exhibition Designer, The Greatest Grid; Cooper Joseph Studio
Marc Kushner, HWKN; CEO, Architizer
Mark Robbins, Dean, Syracuse University School of Architecture
Bernard Tschumi, Bernard Tschumi Architects
Annabelle Selldorf, President, The Architectural League; Annabelle Selldorf Architects
Gregory Wessner, Curator, The Greatest Grid: Call for Ideas; Digital Programs and Exhibitions Director, The Architectural League
Sarah Whiting, Dean, Rice University School of Architecture

INFORMATION/RESOURCES
Click on the links below for articles and resources about the Commissioners’ Plan.

“Remarks of the Commissioners for Laying Out Streets and Roads in the City of New York, Under the Act of April 3, 1807”

“City of New York, North of Canal Street, in 1808 to 1821,”
John Randel, Jr.

“The Greatest Grid: The New York Plan of 1811,” Edward Spann in Two Centuries of American Planning, ed. Daniel Scheffer (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, l988), pp. 11-40 [Link not available]

“Designing the City of New York: The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811,” Artis Wright, Map Division, The New York Public Library (July 30, 2010)

“200th Birthday for the Map that Made New York,” Sam Roberts, The New York Times (March 20, 2011)

“How Manhattan’s Grid Grew,” Jeremy White, Matthew Ericson, Ford Fessenden, Micah Cohen, Joe Burgess, and Archie Tse, The New York Times (March 20, 2011)

“200 Years on the Grid,” Phil Patton, aiga.org (March 22, 2011)

“On Grid’s Birthday, Beautiful Manhattan Maps,” Zachary M. Seward, Wall Street Journal (March 22, 2011)

“The Bicentennial of the Manhattan Street Grid,” Tracie Hulme, wnyc.org (March 22, 2011)

“Happy Birthday, Grid!” Brian Lehrer Show, wnyc.org (March 22, 2011)

QUESTIONS
Click here to read responses to frequently asked questions. All entrants are responsible for revised information in the FAQs. If you have additional questions, please email Gregory Wessner at wessner@archleague.org.

CREDITS
The Greatest Grid: A Call for Ideas is organized by the Architectural League of New York and curated by Gregory Wessner. Funding has been provided by the J. Clawson Mills Fund of the Architectural League. League programs are also made possible in part by 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.

www.archleague.org

The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan is organized by the Museum of the City of New York and curated by Hilary Ballon.

The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan is made possible, in part, by the generous support of The Dyson Foundation, ConEdison, The Durst Organization, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Todd De Garmo, Jill and John Chalsty, Nixon Peabody, Ronay and Richard Menschel, and Vornado Realty Trust.

Additional support is provided by the 42nd Street Development Corporation, Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, Structure Tone, Gardiner & Theobald, American Continental Group, AvalonBay Communities, Benchmark Builders, Robert Derector Associates, VVA Project Managers and Consultants, and Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.

www.mcny.org

MEDIA SPONSOR
Architizer is the revolutionary platform for architecture on the internet. An open network of architects, firms, fans, and projects, Architizer has created a database that spans the world in scope. Launched in November 2009, the site now contains the work of 6,400 international firms and 30,000 individuals joining over 300,000 active users on Facebook.

www.architizer.com

Related posts:

1. New York’s Greatest Building
2. Festival of Ideas for the New City:
   Rem Koolhaas
3. Design in 5 Open Forum/Call for Committee Members
4. Festival of Ideas for the New City:
   Mayoral Panel

The Architectural League Prize is an annual competition, series of lectures, and exhibition organized by the Architectural League and its Young Architects and Designers Committee. The League Prize 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.

Participants in the program are chosen through a portfolio competition that is juried by distinguished architects, artists and critics, and the Young Architects and Designers Committee. The committee, a group selected each year from past winners of the League Prize, is responsible for developing the program’s theme and selecting competition jurors. Open to designers ten years or less out of school, the competition draws entrants from around North America. The lecture series and exhibition by winners of the competition provide a lively public forum for the discussion of their work and ideas.

The 2011 Architectural League Prize winners are:

Ajmal Aqtash, Richard Sarrach, and Tamaki Uchikawa, form-ula, New York City

Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno, Future Cities Lab, San Francisco

Kiel Moe, Boston

Unchung Na and Sorae Yoo, NAMELESS, New York City

Catie Newell, Alibi Studio, Detroit

William O’Brien Jr., Cambridge, Massachusetts

For additional information on this year’s Call for Entries, click here. For more information on the lectures, click here. For more information on this year’s exhibition, click here.

The Architectural League Prize is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. The program is supported by Dornbracht, Susan Grant Lewin Associates, and Tischler und Sohn.

The League thanks the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design for co-sponsoring the exhibition and lecture series.

Related posts:

1. 2010 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers:
   ReSource
2. Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers 2010: ReSource
3. 2010 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers:
   ReSource
4. Past Architectural League Prize Winners (formerly known as The Young Architects Forum)