Nominations are now open for the Toronto Urban Design Awards.
The
biannual event celebrates and rewards urban design and, as the program’s manager Alka Lukatela makes clear, urban design is quite different from architecture or what’s usually referred to simply as "design." The event culminates in a gala that is set to be held this year on September 11.
"If you go to any of the architectural programs, provincial or the national one, the focus is on the quality of the design of the individual piece," she says. "When we are talking about our program, it is really the relationships and the context, everything that happens in the public realm around the project and innovative ways of dealing with specifications, or creating small open spaces, dealing with the landscape end of things."
With an eye to these criteria, the biannual juries always include an architect, a landscape architect, an out-of-province authority, and what Lukatela calls "an interesting member of the public or the press." This year’s jury is made up of
Marianne McKenna,
Cecelia Paine,
Jeremy Sturgess,
Eric Turcotte and
Matthew Blackett. They will be adjudicating entries in categories that include "buildings in context" both private and public, small open spaces, "large places and neighbourhood designs," "visions and master plans" and student projects.
There will be an exhibit of all entries at City Hall from Sept. 9-13 after the May 16 entry deadline. Winners will be exhibited at City Hall and tour the city’s civic centres during September and October.
The budget for the project is $60,000, $30,000 of which is spent on the gala.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Alka Lukatela
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