The Steedman Traveling Fellowship enables graduates of accredited professional degree programs in architecture around the world to travel for architectural research and study in foreign countries for a period of nine months. The $30,000 USD Fellowship is awarded to the winner of the Steedman International Design Competition. The award is based on the quality of the selected winner’s competition design entry, but the quality of his/her research proposal is also considered.
Candidates must be graduates of an accredited school of architecture, and be currently employed in, or have completed at least one year of practical experience in the office of a practicing architect. Candidates are eligible to compete for up to eight years after receipt of their professional degrees, regardless of age. Citizens of all countries are eligible to compete for the Fellowship.
The jury includes: Inaki Abalos; Juhani Pallasmaa of Helsinki, Finland; and Renata Sentkiewicz of Madrid. Other jury members are yet to be announced.
The public space is not only a place where humans collectively fulfill themselves, the Greek polis; it is above all a place where they establish a new forum, an encounter between the non-humans and the humans, a place where we recognize each other, mix ourselves and accept each other; a cosmic forum with dimensions yet to be explored. From this point of view, architecture becomes receptive to completely new ways of conceiving its relation with the natural environment. The defining of new typologies, of observatories from which to widen our vision and put the physical environment in touch with culture, is transformed into a primary objective, the development of which has only been lightly anticipated by typological modalities of intensification and revelation which involve explicit references for contemporary architecture.
January 27, 2006, is the registration deadline, and March 13, 2006 is the submission deadline. There is an entry fee of $75 US.
The Observatory
The research about the observatory idea is crucial in this respect. An observatory is not a vantage point, which leads to an experience or immediate perception. It’s a place in which through the mediation of technology, of different techniques, one manages to establish a dialogue with nature that transmits the primary, innocent experience of perception into knowledge. Hence, this observatory concept especially interests us because it involves a typology in which technology, nature and architecture interact so as to intensify the dialogue between man and world, each one adopting the role that befits him in contemporary culture. The observatory is thus a topological mechanism, a form of mechanization and a way of relating nature and culture that embraces in a single gesture the traditional typologies of skyscrapers, the museum and the parliament, in also redefining the forms in which architecture has interacted with the park in the picturesque and modern tradition. The observatory is a way of relating pragmatist traditiontechnological in kindto the picturesque traditionplastic in kindboth of them underlying yet differentiated from the main current of positivist modernism.
Program
The project to be developed is a pavilion-observatory in which the primary objective will be to provide an architectural structure to develop NEW FORMS of dialogue between humans and non-humans pertinent with culture and contemporary values. The pavilion-observatory has to be a recognizable object of reduced dimension – no more than 1,500 m2 (though bigger dimensions will be accepted if duly justified). The location of the pavilion-observatory can be chosen, documented and justified by the participant, or take place at a site in Central Park, New York either as an extension or substitution of a pre-existing structure or at a location where its characteristics justify the intervention. The relationship between structure and knowledge should be established through an adequate articulation of architecture, technology and nature. The proposals will be judged for its novelty, precision and conciseness as well as for its relevance in the contemporary cultural context.
Specific Proposal Requirements
Descriptive technical drawings with dimensional and material specifications.
Views of its exterior appearance related to the chosen context and site plan.
A graphic description of the entrant’s direct experience at the site as it relates to architecture, technology and nature. The entrant is free to choose the means of representation ie. photos, sketches, drawings etc.
Photos of physical model and two dimensional renderings of a computer model are allowed. A short description, limited to one A5 (or 8.5″ x 5.75″) page which should be inserted in the plans. The total to be presented is 3 panels in A1 format (European) (or 24″ x 36″). (The plans may be sent in tube but NOT folded). Also securely attach an opaque envelope to the back of one of your competition boards. The envelope should contain the following:
A curriculum vitae on one 8 inch x 11 inch or A4 format size page.
A one-page statement of your purpose and proposed program of research for the period of travel in a foreign country. This statement should include the area of architectural interest you wish to pursue.
More information is available on the competition website at www.steedmancompetition.com.