LA+ INTERRUPTION Design Idea Competition
BRIEF
In 1979 in Rome an event titled Roma Interrota was held by the Italian Incontri Internazionale d’arte. It assembled 12 renowned architects, with each assigned a panel from Giambattista Nolli’s 1736 plan of Rome and invited to “interrupt” the plan with their own architectural intervention. The event is a landmark with regard to issues of contextualism; that is, questions of how, in the wake of modernism, the new fits in with the old or, as the case may be, doesn’t.
Some five decades later it is safe to say that urban designers pay much more attention to context than they generally did prior to 1979. Indeed, the raison d’etre of landscape architecture since then has been to fit in with and enhance the existing ecology and culture of a place – to consolidate “a sense of place.” But fitting in and consolidating the status quo can not only be boring but profoundly wrong for today’s world. Why should we fit in with a world speeding headlong into a climate emergency, one that is increasingly shaped by false information and one increasing characterized by social inequity? Perhaps what we really need now are things that don’t fit, things that interrupt and disrupt so as to more boldly change hearts and minds, and redirect ecological and socio-economic flows.
Instead of just a stage for 12 famous white male architects, LA+ is creating a platform for anyone to take an established city or place and design their own INTERRUPTION within it. You can site your interruption anywhere and, if necessary, remove anything to make way for it. It can be an artwork, a garden, a building, a space, a thing, a barrier, an ambience, an opening, a catalyst, a performance, a program, an institution, an intervention, a folly… It can be any scale and it can be anywhere. Whatever and wherever it is, it must productively interrupt both its cultural and spatial context. What does this mean? It means injecting something different into a given context to effect new meanings and new functions. It means questioning what design does, who it’s designed for, what it looks like, and what it means.
All you need to do to enter your design is provide a plan, a concept image, and supporting imagery along with a short statement explaining the what, why, where, how, and benefit/s of your INTERRUPTION.
For submissionrequirements and competition Q+A, see separate tabs.
AWARDS
US $7,000 total prize money
- First Prize
USD $4,000, a certificate, and feature publication in LA+ INTERRUPTION - Second Prize
USD $2,000, a certificate, and feature publication in LA+ INTERRUPTION - Third Prize
USD $1,000, a certificate, and feature publication in LA+ INTERRUPTION - Honorable Mentions
10 honorable mentions to receive a certificate and feature publication in LA+ INTERRUPTION
Editor’s Choice Award
LA+ Journal’s editor-in-chief will choose one notable but unawarded entry to receive publication in the LA+ INTERRUPTION Salon Des Refusésand a full set of LA+ Journal print issues #01–15.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Léa-Catherine Szacka, “Roma Interrotta: Postmodern Rome as the Source of Fragmented Narratives”in Dom Holdaway et Filippo Trentin (Eds.), Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape(2013).
McPhearson, T., M. Raymond, C., Gulsrud, N. et al., “Radical changes are needed for transformations to a good Anthropocene”Urban Sustainability1, 5 (2021).
Christo and Jeanne-Claude(website).
Michael Kimmelman, “Christo’s Billowy Visions: Fleeting But Unforgettable,” New York Times(June 1, 2020).
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti,Manifesto of Futurism(1909).
Rem Koolhaas, “Whatever Happened to Urbanism?”Sprawl 164 (Spring 1995).
Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, fiction and social dreaming (MIT Press, 2013).
Thomas Oles & Phoebe Lickwar, “Why so Serious, Landscape Architect?”LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture 2 (2015), 82–83.
Guy Debord, The “Situationists” International Manifesto(1960).
Richard Weller, “The Critical Landscape Architectural Project”JoLA 3 (2018).
Dark Matter University, “Manifesto.”
Ivica Mitrović, “Introduction to Speculative Design Practice”.
Bernard Tschumi, “Six Concepts,”in Architecture and Disjunction (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994).
WAI Architecture Think Tank, “Un-making ARCHITECTURE: An anti-racist architecture manifesto”The Architect’s Newspaper(15 June 2020).
Brent Scott, “The Hacker Hacked,”Aeon(10 August 2015).
Got suggestions for other readings? Let us know.
ENTRY PLATFORM OPENS
January 10, 2022
SUBMISSION DEADLINE
July 1, 2022 at midnight (US Eastern Time)
WINNERS ANNOUNCED
August 31, 2022
WINNERS + SELECTED ENTRIES PUBLISHED
The LA+ INTERRUPTION issue will be published in Spring 2023.
Jury
Martin Rein-Cano is founder and creative director of the award-winning Berlin-based design firm TOPOTEK 1. Hailing from Buenos Aires, Martin studied art history and landscape architecture in Germany before founding TOPOTEK 1 in 1999. Working at the intersection of the fields of landscape architecture, urbanism, and architecture, TOPOTEK 1’s designs explore the fringes of typologies and scales, using strategies such as the recontextualization of objects and scenographic sequencing to challenge and engage the user. Its work has been widely exhibited and written about, and has received many prestigious awards including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2016 for Superkilen in Copenhagen; the Qatar Sustainability Awards 2018 for the Novy Arbat project in Moscow, the German Landscape architecture Prize 2015 for the UNESCO World Heritage Site Cloister Lorsch in Germany, and the FIABCI 2017 Prix d’Excellence Germany Gold Prize. Martin is a visiting professor at Dessau Institute for Architecture and a veteran of many design competition juries.
Fiona Rabyis partner in the design studio Dunne & Raby, co-director of the Designed Realities Studio, and professor of design and social inquiry at the New School in New York City. She was chair and professor of industrial design (ID2) at Universität für angewandte Kunst in Vienna from 2011–2015 and a Reader in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, London from 1995. Fiona is co-author, with Anthony Dunne, of Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects(2001, republished 2021) and Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction and Social Dreaming(2013). Dunne & Raby’s work has been exhibited at MoMA in New York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Design Museum in London, and is in several permanent collections including MoMA, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts. Dunne & Raby received the inaugural MIT Media Lab Award in 2015.
Rania Ghosnis associate professor of architecture and urbanism at MIT and founding partner of Design Earthwith El Hadi Jazairy. Her practice engages the speculative design project to make visible and public the geographies of the climate crisis and her work has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Bauhaus Museum Dessau, Matadero Madrid, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, MAAT Lisbon, Triennale di Milano, Sursock Museum Beirut, Guangdong Times Museum, Oslo Architecture Triennale, the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, and is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Rania is founding editor of New Geographiesand editor of Landscapes of Energy(2009) and coauthor of Geographies of Trash(2015), Geostories: Another Architecture for the Environment(2020), and The Planet After Geoengineering(2021). Rania holds a Bachelor of Architecture from American University of Beirut, a Master of Geography from University College London, and a Doctor of Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is recipient of the Architectural League Prize (2016), the ACSA Faculty Design Award (2014, 2017), the Boghossian Foundation Prize (2017), and other honors.
Mark Raggattis a director of notable Australian design firm ARM Architecture. ARM is defiantly and zealously dedicated to the dissemination of ideas in and through architecture, and Mark’s work has been described as “a delirious mash-up of influences, sources, experiments, scribbles, rantings, critical writings, interviews, essays and major projects, all piled one on top of the other.” His design work includes the University of Sydney College of the Arts, the Gold Coast HoTA Outdoor Stage, and the Blacktown International Centre of Training Excellence. He is currently involved in the Sydney Opera House Renewal to be completed in 2022. Mark was coeditor and contributor to Mongrel Rapture: The Architecture of Ashton Raggatt McDougallwhich was awarded the Australian Institute of Architects Bates Smart Architecture in the Media Award. He continues his research and teaching through the Masters of Architecture programs at RMIT University in Melbourne and the University of Technology Sydney. Mark’s current research is focused on the role of design and designer in reconciliation and decolonization of the built environment in Australia.
Jason Zhisen Ho is a curator, urbanist, and educator based in Guangzhou, China. He is founder of Mapping Workshop China and director of FEI Arts Museum in Guangzhou. Jason has participated in many international exhibitions including the Venice Architecture Biennale, and the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. He was sub-curator of the 2017 Shenzhen & Hong Kong ArchitectureUrbanism Bio-City Biennale, academic convener of 2017 Guangzhou Art Week, and co-curator of the 2021 OCAT Shenzhen Biennale. Jason is an adjunct professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and associate professor in the School of Architecture at South China University of Technology, Guangzhou. In 2019, he was named by China’s Southern Metropolis Dailynewspaper as “Star of the Year.”
Submissions
Submissions must conform to the page dimensions and instructions provided in the LA+ INTERRUPTION competition template, which is designed to assist journal layout for winning and other entries selected for publication. The competition template is available for download in .pdf, .indd, and .idml formats HERE. DO NOT include the supporting statement on the image sheets – this will be inputted separately into the competition platform.
IMAGE REQUIREMENTS
SHEET 1(8.75 x 10.5 inches)
Concept Image.
SHEET 2(17.5 x 10.5 inches)
Supporting imagery including a scaled plan showing your design in context.
SHEET 3(OPTIONAL) (17.5 x 10.5 inches)
Supporting imagery, the content and layout of which is at entrants’ discretion. Please note that Sheet 3 is optional.
*Download Competition Template below. See Q+Afor important notes about template and arrangement of submission elements.
TEXT REQUIREMENTS
These text requirements are to be inputted into the competition platform at the time of submission.
- Your design’s location (place and country), and its longitude and latitude.
- A supporting statement* under 300 words explaining the what, why, where, how, and benefit of your INTERRUPTION.
*IMPORTANT: Do not put the supporting statement on the design image sheets. You will be asked to input the statement online during the online submission process.
HOW TO ENTER
1. READTHE CONDITIONS OF ENTRY
2. DOWNLOADTHE COMPETITION TEMPLATE
3. REGISTER AND SUBMITYOUR ENTRY*
*NOTE: Submissions must be made through the competition platform at https://laplus.slideroom.com/. You’ll be asked to sign up for a free SlideRoom account to get started. You can begin your submission when you choose and complete it at any time before midnight on July 1, 2022. You’ll have a chance to review your materials before final submission and payment of the competition entry fee is the last step before you submit. You’ll receive official confirmation of your entry and receipt for payment upon submission. At the time of submitting your entry, you’ll be asked to agree to the conditions of entry. Good luck!
Submission deadline: July 1, 2022 at midnight (US Eastern time).
Conditions
The specific conditions below and the entire competition website constitute the Conditions of Entry.
ELIGIBILITY + ANONYMITY
- LA+ INTERRUPTION is an international design ideas competition open to students and professionals of any discipline.
- There are no professional qualification requirements for entry.
- Entries may be made by individuals and teams of up to three (3) people. Three is the maximum number of members permitted in a team.
- Employees of LA+ Journal or ORO Editions, LA+ INTERRUPTION team members, jury members, and their spouses/partners are not eligible to enter.
- Faculty, students, and employees from jury member organizations are eligible to enter.
- Entries will be judged anonymously. There must be no identifying information (that is, information that identifies individuals, organizations, schools, groups, or firms associated with the entry) on the images, in the image file names, or in the accompanying statement or text. Non-conforming entries will be disqualified.
- Jurors are required to immediately advise the competition organizer and recuse themselves from voting on a particular submission in the event that they believe they recognize the identity of an entrant from the submission.
- Any entrant who violates these rules and any non-conforming entries will be disqualified.
SUBMISSIONS + USE OF SUBMITTED MATERIALS
- Submissions will only be accepted from eligible entrants who have paid the USD $50 entry fee and submitted digitally through the competition platformby the competition close date (midnight US Eastern Time on July 1, 2022).
- Submissions must conform to page/sheet dimensions found on the LA+ INTERRUPTION competition templateand the instructions shown at registration and on this website. Non-conforming submissions will be disqualified.
- Please note that only .jpeg, .jpg, .tif, .tiff image files are accepted. Files must be under 10MB each and should have a minimum resolution of 300ppi.
- No physical/mailed submissions will be accepted.
- Submitted materials shall not be released nor exposed to the public, press, or other media (including social media) before the announcement of the winning entries. Entrants who violate this condition will be disqualified. Process images that do not reveal the final design are acceptable.
- No information contained in submissions shall be deemed confidential; therefore, please do not submit any information that may be considered proprietary in nature.
- LA+ Journal and its sponsors or affiliates shall not be liable for any costs incurred by any entrant in the preparation of a submission.
- By entering LA+ INTERRUPTION you warrant that your submission does not include any images or text infringing on a third-party copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property right.
- By entering LA+ INTERRUPTION you grant LA+ Journal a free license to use, publish, distribute, and make derivatives of the submitted materials, in whole or in part, in connection with judging, promotion, review, publication, and exhibition of the competition and of LA+ Journal, and for archival and other purposes, in any format including print, digital, and online.
- LA+ Journal has complete discretion over how submitted materials (including images, derivatives of images, supporting texts, and fonts) are adapted or used in any publication, exhibition, or promotion. LA+ Journal may crop, alter, adapt, or reformat images, replace fonts, and edit or change text to conform with overall aesthetic, style, and with other layout and editorial considerations of any publication or exhibition, and for promotional or review purposes, without notice to the entrant.
- LA+ Journal may request design files from awarded entrants for the purpose of making font changes, formatting changes, text corrections, image resizing, or other necessary changes required for publication.
GENERAL
- In the case of disqualification, entrants will NOTbe notified and entry fees will NOTbe refunded.
- Jury processes and deliberations are private and the decisions of the jury process are final.
- An entry fee of USD $50 is payable at the time of submission. Major credit and debit cards are accepted.
- The information on this website and on the submissions platform forms part of these Conditions of Entry. You must accept the Conditions of Entry to enter the competition.
- The competition organizers reserve the right to amend this website at any time, without notice.
