Filling the Gap
Prijsvraag
An international student contest is seeking community-oriented building proposals to promote healing, recovery and rehabilitation. The contest – organised by Canadian Academy of Architecture for Justice – invites architecture students around the world to draw up architectural concepts which respond to contemporary crises such as drug addiction, homelessness and poverty by promoting diversion, healing and rehabilitation.
Featuring a $5,000 CDN prize fund – the call for concepts aims to identify a range of new typologies that directly respond to the challenges facing society and ‘seek to avoid institutionalisation of the individuals involved.’
Participants may select any site and any crisis to focus on worldwide. According to the brief: ‘Present day societies are facing a wide variety of crises, ranging from the influx of highly addictive drugs to climate change, war, poverty, discrimination, homelessness, the suppression of Indigenous culture, as well as an increasing need for mental health care and support facilities.
Key aims of the contest are reducing crime and recidivism, providing health and/or social services that address root causes of criminal behaviour, diverting individuals away from incarceration and repairing fractures within the community. Participants must be enrolled as a student at a recognised school of architecture. Concepts should deliver a community-oriented justice facility featuring programme elements – such as transitional housing or educational facilities – relevant to a specific crisis. Proposals may be new build or draw on adaptive reuse.
Judges will include Carlos Augusto Garcia, associate principal at Brooks + Scarpa Architects; Khalil A Cumberbatch, director of strategic partnerships at the Council on Criminal Justice; and Susan Davis, executive director of the Gerstein Crisis Centre.
The overall winner – to be announced in September – will receive a $3,000 CDN prize while a second and third prize each of $1,000 CDN will also be awarded.