| Competition status | ANNOUNCEMENT: WINNING ENTRY FOR THE SOUTHBANK INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITION The winner of the Southbank Architectural Competition, announced on January 20, 2007, at 4pm, South African mean time, is entry 06-0039 “Collage”, by thread collective & normaldesign, Brooklyn, USA. The judges’ citation reads: The winning scheme, Collage, is characterised by an original and innovative conceptual response to the requirements and aspirations of the Southbank Architectural Competition. The scheme is authored by thread collective & normaldesign, a collaborative team of architects, landscape architects and public art practitioners based in Brooklyn. They will develop the project in association with South African architects. The singular idea that differentiated this scheme was the integration of the Africa Centre and the residential community, achieved by the positioning of its key elements throughout the housing component of the scheme. It responded to the aspirations and spirit of the brief: that the Africa Centre gives a character and energy to the community, and that the community in turn contributes to the activities of the Centre. The authors propose to make a compact settlement that has some of the benefits of the urban rather than the suburban condition, while reconciling with its rural context. This is crucial for ecological sustainability as it preserves natural landscapes and minimises the land area and the material used in development. It also helps to minimise energy demands and provision of services. The nature of the scheme acknowledges transformation as a generative principle. It possesses a vitality that came through the overlay of the two major elements, the residential and Africa Centre areas. This will allow for both parts to be evolved in their design and use, and avoids the constraints that would arise from a rigid master plan. Two schemes were nominated for Honourable Mentions. They are entry AC06_BXPVX, by Architekturbüro Uli Tischler, Martin Mechs and entry 181867 “wings”, by love- architecture and urbanism. END OF ANNOUNCEMENT |
| Promoter | The competition promoter was Spier Holdings, a private company based at the Spier Estate outside Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, South Africa. |
| Site | The site is on the south side of the Eerste River (Southbank), within 450 ha of land, which comprises a combination of 80 ha of grapes, fallow agricultural land and a unique combination of flora known as fynbos and renosterveld. Adjacent to the site on the north bank is the leisure infrastructure of the Spier Estate (155-bed hotel, conference facilities, restaurants and retail outlets). To the East, the Estate is bordered by the Spier wine cellar and, to the West, the intersection of the Bonte and Eerste Rivers. The site, like the region as a whole, is part of a rich and sensitive ecological context. Visual details of the site are provided under the 'Site images' section. |
| Project content | The competition called on architects and designers to define and apply new spatial approaches in order to create a community that will serve as a model for sustainable living elsewhere on the continent and beyond. At the core of the competition were universally relevant questions: in a globalizing world, how can new spaces come into being that simultaneously acknowledge the creativity of its inhabitants, the abundance and fragility of its natural settings, and the dynamics of urban growth? The Southbank was an open, two-stage competition that aimed to produce visualisations of a new community for 2000-3000 people, in which residential accommodation merges with internationally significant facilities for arts production and performance, in a setting defined by ecological conservation. In the first stage, called "image/bank", the objectives were to:
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| Procedure | The competition was organised as an open, international, two-stage project competition run online in the first stage. The procedure was anonymous, with an unlimited number of entrants in the first stage, image/bank. Six finalists were selected in the first stage, image/bank, and were eligible to enter the second stage, south/centre. One of the conditions of the second stage was that if a finalist is not South African, they enter into a collaboration, of their choice, with an appropriate South African registered architecture practice. Online registration was necessary to receive the full briefing and background documents for the competition. Registration for the competition was free. The administrators were Dr Daniel Irurah and Hannah le Roux, advised by Mr. Herbert Prins and [phase eins]., who were also responsible for the development and technical administration of the Website and data processing in the first stage. The Southbank competition was endorsed by the South African Institute of Architects. |
| Requirements | The requirement for image/bank was the online submission of the following drawings and documents: Plans and illustrations: A total of 10 images must be submitted as either JPEG, TIF, BMP or PNG files in landscape format, with a maximum size of 3 Megapixels (2.160x1.440) for each image. The images will be viewed in the assessment process at a maximum of A4 size in printed summaries and as large scale digital projections during jury discussions. Texts should be kept to a minimum on the images and should be legible at both small and large scales. The explanatory texts which are to be entered in separate boxes can relate to the image numbers.
A total of six texts can be entered in the online forum and must focus on the subjects listed below.
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| Jury | Adrian Enthoven or Tanner Methvin, Spier Holdings, South Africa. Ikem Stanley Okoye, architect and academic, Nigeria/USA. Luyanda Mphalwa, architect, South Africa. Michael Keniger, architect and academic, Australia. Mike Rainbow, engineer, UK. Salah Hassan, curator, and art historian, Sudan/USA. Anne Lacaton, architect, France. |
| Prizes | Each finalist received two economy class airfare and three nights accommodation to visit the site and/or, in the case of finalists who did not meet the requirements of professional registration in South Africa, to meet with collaborators for the second stage. All the six finalists submited the required work for the second stage, south/centre, and were awarded expenses of $25 000 each. The winning scheme from south/centre received $75 000, and its authors were appointed as architects for the project. |
| Eligibility | Entry to the first stage, "image/bank", was open to all, irrespective of professional qualifications, disciplinary background, or nationality. To be eligible for submission in the second stage, “south/centre”, the author(s) of the schemes that were selected as finalists from the first stage had to include one or more physical persons registered as an architect in their home country. In addition, where the home country was other than South Africa, author(s) of the selected submissions were required to enter into collaboration with a registered architect in South Africa in order to satisfy SACAP (South African Council for the Architectural Professions) rules for execution of architectural work in South Africa. |
| Dates | First stage "image/bank": Deadline for registration: July 16, 2006 Upload period: July 17 to August 7, 2006 Deadline for submission of entries (online): August 7, 2006 Second stage "south/centre": Selection of finalists: September 15, 2006 Dispatch deadline for submissions: December 20, 2006 Announcement of winner and commencement of realisation process: January 20, 2007 |
| Spier Holdings | Originally founded in 1692, the Spier Estate was purchased by the Enthoven family in 1993 when an aggressive process of restoration and expansion began. Spier currently owns and operates two core businesses within the hospitality and wine industries. The first is Spier Leisure Holdings, which includes a hotel, property development, restaurants, conference facilities and retail outlets. The second is Winecorp Holdings, which includes vineyards, winemaking, and bottling facilities. Spier also has interests in various other businesses including hotels and lodges, recycled plastic, a nursery and the treatment and production of organic waste. Spier’s vision is to become a model of transparency, accountability, corporate governance, citizenship and sustainable development within the private sector. Spier constantly measures, reports on and seeks to improve the impact it makes on the economy, the environment, and on the reversal of social inequities. Spier’s approach is not only based on solid business principles, but also on its values. Concern for humanity and the environment are fundamental to its belief system and the way it does business. One of Spier’s principal social contributions to South Africa has been the preservation, promotion and development of the arts. For the last eight years Spier has produced an annual four-month festival with a diverse offering of dance, theatre, and music. In addition, Spier has given birth to a music theatre company, film production house, voice training academy, and exhibited a range of Pan-African visual art on and off the Spier Estate. To further its interests in promoting and developing the arts, Spier has funded the creation of the Africa Centre. The Africa Centre is both a physical entity and an ongoing process. Meant to grow spatially and conceptually over a period of several years, in time it will emerge as a multi-sited, multiple-usage space where the visual and performance cultures of Africa, South and North, present and past are celebrated, studied and brought to life for diverse audiences in innovative ways. |