ASSIGNMENT OF TASKS

It is probably the most radical interpretation of ‘city’ and one that has remained untouched by the parameters of today’s globalised world. Our conventional system and the perception of ‘city’ are characterised by traffic, orientation through man-made signs and acceleration. 

Venice is the very opposite of this. This paradigm shift from land to water can be best appreciated at the crossings and entrances to the city.

While Venice’s original entrance at St Mark’s Square is wonderfully crafted with its campanile serving as a bell tower and beacon and one of the city’s landmarks, today’s entrance has shifted to the north west. Today over 20 million visitors a year pour into the city through two new interfaces: the Piazzale Roma with its airport buses, cars and cruise passengers and, next to it, the Santa Lucia station, and its forecourt, where all train services end. 

Unlike St Mark’s Square, the issue of entrance and crossing at these two places, the architectonic interface between the land and maritime system, is not addressed. The entrance to the city is so to speak through an undesigned backyard.  

This situation provides the theme of the assignment. Competition entrants are invited to design this entrance and undefined point of passage through a temporary and subversive intervention, a conversion/use of what is already there or a structural addition in order to allow a dialogue to be generated between the past and the present, between the transient and the monumental. The city must be considered as a stage where the light becomes a medium able to relate man, architecture and space / urban spaces, transforming them into places. A sustainable light can stimulate new awarenesses, identities and environmental qualities, enabling connections and following the rhythms of man and nature.

In doing so, entrants can propose solutions either for just one place (the Piazzale Roma or Santa Lucia with the station) or select the two places together in their spatial context. The desired outcome is to have works which move within the area bordering staging, art and architecture. The city space and its scenographic potential are therefore areas of emphasis in this competition.

An external occasion is provided by the Architecture Biennale, the most important international architecture fair that takes place across Venice for three months every other year. An element of this ephemeral assignment is being noticeable during the Biennale and then disappearing with the Biennale.

This assignment is directed at students of architecture, interior design, scenography and landscape planning. Light is chosen within these meta-themes as an immaterial medium and should be positioned in an innovative way.

Artemide GmbH
Dipl.-Ing. Steffen Salinger, Geschäftsführer
Hans Böckler Straße 2
D-58730 Fröndenberg

Hochschule Ostwestfalen Lippe 
Detmolder Schule für Architektur + Innenarchitektur
Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Swantje Kühn
Bielefelder Straße 45
D-32756 Detmold

Competition launch: 14 September 2012 
Competition submission:  14 March 2013 online
Jury meeting: 19 April 2013 

Other dates 

Registration to attend symposium 1 August 2012
Registration to take part in competition 1 November 2012
Queries answered by 15 October 2012

This is a single-stage competition. The best work will be selected by an independent jury. The jury consists of individuals from the specialist disciplines of architecture, interior design, landscape planning and scenography.

The following prizes will be awarded:

1st  prize € 2,500
2nd € 1,500
3rd prize € 500

Special prizes:  Artemide GmbH products 

The competition is being announced on all German-speaking and international internet platforms.
Competition documentation will be available at www.lighthouse-competition.com from 14 September 2012.

The competition documentation includes:

• photographic material of the competition site and surrounding area
• site plan with illustration
• plan documents in dwg file format

Entrants must register online by 1 November 2012 to enter the competition, citing their name, university, subject and supervising tutor.

Anyone wishing to attend the symposium in Venice (limited availability of 70 seats) must register online by 1 August 2012. This will result in a firm booking.

The entries must be sent, online and printed out, by 14.03.2013, midnight, at the latest. Please also include the signed declaration of copyright and eligibility.

Hochschule Ostwestfalen Lippe
University of Applied Sciences
Prof. Swantje Kühn
Emilienstr. 45
D-32756 Detmold
Germany

Online dispatch: 
Please send digital data in the formats printable PDF and dwg/dxf file to the following e-mail address: swantje.kuehn@hs-owl.de

We recommend dispatch via services such as www.wetransfer.com or www.dropbox.com.

Any competition-related queries e-mailed to info@lighthouse-competition.com by 15 October 2012 will be answered and will be available for download from the website. 

DIN A0 size paper is to be used in landscape format as standard for the designs. No more than four DIN A0 sheets are allowed and all sheets are to be numbered clearly (from 1 to 4). An explanatory report is to be included with each piece of work, briefly and concisely explaining the design concept on no more than 2 DIN A4 pages. Photographs of models can be shown in the presentation plans. The competition language is English.

All parts of the work are be given a codeword of the entrant’s choice in the top right-hand corner. All entries must also be supplied in CD form and as print out plans. This is to be labelled in the same way explained above. For ease of allocating entries to their authors, the following name conventions must be used for file identification: the first part of the file name is the codeword, followed by the title of the plan and the file format name (for example: Doerner_EG_plan_01.pdf). Users of Apple computers in particular are asked to pay attention to entering the file format name when saving data.

Format: DIN A 0 (landscape)

• Map of the area with a representation of the open spaces 1:500
• If necessary, all ground plans, views, sections on a scale required to understand the competition entry
• At least two perspectives/visualisations/collages of the external appearance or of the interior
• Explanatory drawings/ diagrams/ pictograms
• Explanatory report DIN A4