Lake Macquarie City Council has launched a $40,000 nationwide design competition seeking the “next-generation of urban housing in Australia.”
The “dWELL” contest will be open to architects, building designers and students, who will be challenged to design a housing type “with wellness, innovation, affordability and sustainability at its heart.”
The council’s manager of property and business development, David Antcliff, said there is a projected demand for 13,500 new homes in Lake Macquarie in the next 16 years and the time is right to think outside the square. Lake Macquarie is in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, around 150 kilometres north of Sydney.
“We want to give a platform to the ideas that have been bubbling around in the back of designers’ heads,” he said.
“All too often, a client’s brief is very specific about what they want to achieve, how a building will look or how it will perform, and this thinking generally comes from the past.
“We want to give creative professionals and students some freedom to design homes of the future that are focused on making people’s lives better.”
The competition has two categories: one for professional architects and building designers, the other for teams comprising at least one university architecture student.
Entrants are being asked to first submit an expression of interest and description of their intended design, for a proposed site of a vacant, council-owned block on Ocean Street in Dudley.
Entries that progress past Stage 1 will share in a $10,000 prize pool and be invited to create a more detailed submission.
Shortlisted entries for Stage 2 will share in a $30,000 prize pool and the council will consider building the winning design on the hilltop site in Dudley. “Winning entries will be showcased nationally as an example of what is possible, what is practical and what is affordable in providing next-generation housing for all Australians,” said Antcliff.
The judging panel comprises: Urban Development Institute of Australia NSW CEO Steven Mann; Planning Institute of Australia NSW President Juliet Grant; University of Newcastle Head of Architecture Chris Tucker and Maxine and Karstan Smith, local residents and contestants on reality television show The Block in 2014.
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Source: Architecture - architectureau
