Cleveland Design Competition Project 2009

I was unable to attend the awards, but my friend Ted did. The following is a repost from his blog, Rockitecture. Check it out.

Cleveland Design Competition Project 2009: Lakefront Station Awards

I was able to attend the Cleveland Design Competition Project 2009: Lakefront Station Awards on Friday night at the Colonial Arcade. As always, Michael Christoff and Bradley Fink, the event organizers put on a great competition and an even better awards reception. It is always encouraging for the design culture of Cleveland to see this event, now in its third year, get more and more attention, both locally and internationally. All of the entries will stay up for public viewing in the space through February 19th, during regular hours for the arcade.

For whatever reason it is a huge struggle to get people within the design community to come out for events that are supposed for the design community in Cleveland, but it always seems much easier to get the general public that has a passing interest in design or the built environment to come out. Friday night was the first time in my three or so years in Cleveland that I was at an event this heavily attended not only by the public, but also many architects, designers, politicians, developers, and others in Cleveland that play large roles in shaping the future of the city.

While I was a little surprised by the projects the jury selected as winners, it has less to do with their individual merits, and more to do with my personal views. I would have liked to see projects that engaged issues that are unique to Cleveland in their final solutions, rather then a reliance on large formal gestures (however beautiful they may be). My personal favorite of the winners is the third place entry, by Russell Collin of London, which is the only project of the winners that begins to break down the scale of the quite difficult site in a meaningful way.

Never the less, kudos to all involved!

Anyway, here are the winners of the 2009 Cleveland Design Competition:

First Place:

Mario Caceres & Christian Canonico; Paris, France

Second Place:

Pepijn Van Voorst; The Hague, Netherlands

Third Place:

Russell Collin; London, UK

Honorable Mentions:

Visvaldis Sarma; Latvia

Javier Guijarro Fayard, Annie Martinez-Pita; Madrid, Spain

Elina Kritikou, Kenzo Yamashita; Cyprus

Ashley Dennis, Esan Rahmani; Sydney, Australia

Martina Decker, Kaja Kahl; New York, New York

For more information and images of the honorable mention projects, check out the Cleveland Competition website and the gallery pageof the winning projects