Let’s make Boston dynamic!
The SHIFTboston Ideas Competition 2009 called on all architects, artists, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers and anyone to submit their most provocative wild visions for the City of Boston: WHAT IF this could happen in Boston?
SHIFTboston seeks to collect visions that aim to enhance and electrify the urban experience in Boston. Innovative, radical ideas for new city elements such as public art, landscape, architecture, urban intervention and transportation. Competitors were encouraged to explore topics such as the future city, energy efficiency and ecological urbanism.
This competition is intended to collect and inspire. The goal is to attract greater public interest in future possibilities for the urban environment of Boston. We want to inspire and engage the city community while encouraging positive awareness and a hunger for change. We believe a collective desire to push boundaries and challenge the familiar are the necessary seeds with which to grow a more dynamic city!
THINK PLAY THINK NEW THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
We seek to drive a SHIFT in thinking, perception, attitude, definition, process, method, planning, and organization in order to re-energize Boston’s urban environment. We are here to move Boston forward. Be part of the SHIFT!
Jury Panel
urban Intervention and play
Scott Burnham, Creative Director, Urban Innovator and Writer
Scott created and curated the Urban Play project for Droog Design in Amsterdam. As Creative Director of the UK’s Urbis Centre for Urban Culture, he directed projects ranging from Will Alsop’s ‘SuperCity’ to ‘The China Show’. He has collaborated with Stefan Segmeister, Peter Saville, Weiden + Kennedy and the city of Barcelona among many others throughout Europe, North America and China, and maintains an international portfolio of writing, consulting and lecturing assignments, most recently addressing the World Urban Congress in Riga.
materiality and placemaking in the urban environment
Brian Healy, Principal of Brian Healy Architects
Brian is an architect and educator who has taught graduate design studios for years at Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently the Gerard Sheff Visiting Professor in Architecture at McGill University in Montreal. His widely recognized and published projects have been recognized by numerous national and regional awards for design excellence and is featured in a monograph published this year, “Commonplaces: Thinking about an American Architecture”. His award winning work includes the Children’s Chapel for the Korean Church of Boston, the Mill Center for the Arts (Hendersonville, NC), and Chicago’s Initiative to Redefine Public Housing. He served as the BSA 2004 President and as a member of the Design Advisory Panel for the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston.
ecological design
Mitchell Joachim, Co-Founder of Terreform ONE and Terrefuge
Mitchell’s specialty is in the theory and science of ecological design. Recently, he was awarded the Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design at the University of Toronto and serves on the faculty at Columbia University, Parson’s the New School of Design. He has been awarded the Moshe Safdie Research Fellowship, and the Martin Family Society Fellow for Sustainability. He won the History Channel/ Infiniti Award for the City of the Future, NY and Time Magazine Best Invention of the Year 2007, Compacted Car w/ MIT Smart Cities. Recently, Wired Magazine included him on The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To.
architectural discipline in Boston
Audrey O’Hagan, Principal of O’Hagan Architects
Audrey is an award-winning architect with over 25 years of experience in the United States and Great Britain. In 2006, she was honored to be selected as one of the top 10 architects/interior designers in New England by Women’s Business Boston. Her work has been published in Architectural Record, Interior Design magazine, BusinessWeek, R&D Magazine, Laboratory Design News, and the Boston Globe. She has received numerous awards for the work, most recently a 2006 BusinessWeek/Architectural Record Award for Design Excellence.
urban Intervention and play
Ana Salinas Mata, Principal of Wilk-Salinas Architekten
Ana is a part of a young architecture office established in Berlin with Gilbert Wilk. Their first project, Winterbadeschiff, immediately gained recognition and was awarded several prizes including the Assocation of German Architects’ (BDA) Berlin Architecture Award, IOC/IAKS Award Silver (International Association for Sports and Leisure Facilities) and the International Urban Landscape Award Honorable Mention. They are members of the prestigious BDA in Germany. Their work has been presented in exhibitions such as the 10 Edition of the Bienal of Architecture in Venedig, Intercity New-York Berlin, Intercity Berlin-Prag, and JAE Young Architects of Spain.
future city
Thom Mayne, Founder and Design Director of Morphosis Architects
Thom is a widely recognized Los Angeles based architect, who helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecture in 1972. Since then he has held teaching positions at SCI-ARC, Cal Poly Pomona and UCLA. He is the Founder and Design Director of Morphosis, a renowned architectural office located in Santa Monica, California. Mayne received the Pritzker Prize in March 2005. Some of his more recent work includes: 41 Cooper Square, Cooper Union and Caltrans District 7 Headquarters. His most recent design for the Phare Tower in Paris, France uses new advances in parametric scripting technology; its skin will capture sun and wind to produce energy.
urban theory
Sarah Whiting, Principal of WW Architecture, Dean of the Rice University School of Architecture
Sarah is an expert in urban and architectural theory, currently an Assistant Professor at Princeton University and is appointed to become the Dean of the School of Architecture at Rice University in January 2010. Previously, she taught at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, the Illinois Institute of Technology, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Florida. Sarah’s writings have been widely published in journals and anthologies. She is the author of the forthcoming book “Superblock City”, the editor of a new architectural book series “POINT” by Princeton University Press, and a contributor to Log. WW Architecture won first place in the international design competition for San Jose Museum of Art and Design at San Jose State University. Her previous experience includes working in the offices of Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves and as a designer for the Euralille master plan in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture with Rem Koolhaas.
SHIFTboston Forum
On January 14, 2010 at The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, the SHIFTboston Forum presented the top ideas and announced the winner of the SHIFTboston Ideas Competition. See more.
Awards
The winning entry received a cash prize of US$1,000.00. Honored projects are expected to be displayed on a billboard, bus shelters and subway cars in the Boston Metropolitan area. See the winner and selected entries.
Sponsors & Partners
Special Thanks
Stoltze Design, SHIFT identity & print Forum promotionals
Jason Schupbach, Massachusetts Creative Economy Council
Robert Culver, MassDevelopment
Downtown Crossing Partnership
Friends of Fort Point Channel
Boston Redevelopment Authority 1 in 3
Boston World Partnerships
Scott Burnham
Martin Houle, +KOLLECTIF+, Montreal
Quintin Rodriguez-Harrison, Website Developer