The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape (SAPL) at the University of Calgary has launched a design competition intended to spark an international discussion around equitable, inclusive cities.
The CBDX: CITIES FOR ALL competition is an ambitious endeavour, inviting interested participants “to propose design counterpoints to the questions weighing on our collective conscience resulting from the current social and political climate”.
The competition is an extension of a discussion SAPL has actively been hosting, most recently via a livestreamed panel discussion featuring architect-activists from South Africa and the United States. “Space is life,” Dr. Craig Wilkins from the University of Michigan implored. “If you don’t have access to it, if your access to it is unjust or unequal, then your life is going to be that way.”
According to SAPL, the pandemic and the Black Lives Matters movement have created a sense of urgency for addressing a wide-ranging set of inequities that have always existed.
“The climate crisis and social inequality have converged against the backdrop of a pandemic, prompting us to rethink the way cities are being designed, built and operated,” said Dr. John L. Brown, PhD, SAPL dean. “It is an opportunity for architects, planners, landscape architects, and other creative practitioners and students to imagine how we can make our futures better for everyone. The ideas generated from this competition will offer a glimpse into how a city for all might look, how it might operate, and come into being.”
Entrants will submit design proposals for places, structures, things, systems, processes or relationships that increase inclusion, belonging, and well-being for a group who is typically underrepresented or undervalued in the prevailing design discourse.
The competition offers $6000 in prizes and the deadline for submissions is December 31, 2020. An international, interdisciplinary jury will identify the winning entries on February 10, 2021. Selected entries will be exhibited in February 2021 and published in Fall 2021.
Competition details can be found at cbdxcitiesforall.com.
