OPEN CALL: Projects For International Urban Project Award 2024

The International Urban Project Award (IUPA) is presented by Bauwelt (Berlin) and World Architecture Magazine (WA, Tsinghua University Beijing) and supported by BAU China, Messe München, and the Architecture Society of China (ASC). The award recognizes new and outstanding urban and architectural projects that have transformed cities worldwide. It focuses on the interface between architecture and urban space and is dedicated to the impact of buildings, urban design and landscape architecture on the city; how built projects activate public space and the development of urban neighborhoods. The prize highlights architecture and urban design as social and cultural forces capable of upgrading public space, thereby enhancing civic life and ultimately celebrating urbanity. One First Prize and three Special Prizes will be awarded.

Topics 2024: Interfaces
Interfaces are the physical elements that connect architecture, urban design, public space and landscape. They connect people and places. Urban interfaces form, frame, negotiate and govern myriad transitions from one space to another. It can be the interface between interior and exterior, building and open space, city and nature, between different infrastructures—or even between the real and virtual. Important to those transitions is the perceptual and cognitive experience of access and identity. What makes architecture relatable? How does private space plug into public networks? Which uses does the space between buildings invite for? The IUPA 2024 will be awarded to targeted constructive interventions capable of interlinking and revitalizing traditional urban public spaces. Both architecture and urban development projects can be submitted.

Application criteria
Projects should be substantially built but need not to be fully completed. They should be less than five years old (2020–24).

Eligible to apply are architects, urban planners, and landscape architects from around the world, including individuals as well as working teams.

Entry
The submitted project is to be presented on an A1 portrait panel consisting of four single A3 sheets. Participants may design the panel freely, following the submission guidelines below:

On the first A3, the project should be presented with a single photo together with the project title.

Please include all relevant information about the project in writing on the second A3. In addition to the author’s details, key project data, and an index of manufacturers, there should be a brief explanation of the project itself. The explanatory report should be no more than 400 words in length. You may supplement your text with images or drawings.

Please show more project pictures on the third A3.

On the fourth A3, present the work in drawings, comprehensively and clearly in its entirety and in detail.

The competition language is English. Legal recourse is excluded.

Please submit your entry in print quality (PDF format, max. 5 MB) by July 1, 2024 via iupa.bauwelt.de (alternatively per e-mail or WeTransfer or a similar transfer tool to iupa@bauwelt.de).

Jury
The jury session will take place in Beijing in August 2024. The jury members are:
LI Cundong, Secretary-General of the Architectural Society of China (ASC) / CAO Jiaming, Vice President of the Architectural Society of China (ASC), President of the Architectural Society of Shanghai China (ASSC) / Zhang Li, Vice President of UIA (Region IV), Dean of the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University, Professor of Architecture, leader of Atelier TeamMinus, board member of the Architectural Society of China, Editor-in-chief of World Architecture Beijing / Magdalene Weiß, Executive Partner gmp Shanghai / Peter Cachola Schmal, Director Deutsches Architekturmuseum (German Architecture Museum) Frankfurt / Boris Schade-Bünsow, Editor-in-chief of Bauwelt, Berlin

Prize and ceremony
The First Prize will be awarded EUR 3,000; the three Special Prizes will be awarded EUR 1,000 each. The jury is authorized to split the sum differently. The award ceremony will take place as part of the BAU Congress China Shanghai on Wednesday, October 16, 2024 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (NECC) (Shanghai).

Publication
All award-winning projects and a selection of further entries will be published in the catalogue of BAU Congress China Shanghai 2024, WA and Bauwelt, and will also be exhibited on the fairgrounds of the National Exhibition and Convention Center during the BAU Congress China Shanghai 2024. Submitters guarantee that they are the creators and authors of their competition entries. Furthermore, they consent to the cost-free publication of their submissions. Submitters are solely responsible for obtaining permissions for the right of use from third parties, especially regarding photographs.

Organizers
WA World Architecture Magazine is a leading architecture journal in China located in Beijing, bilingual and published monthly, distributed worldwide and directed by Tsinghua University. Founded in 1980, WA serves as a prominent platform for Chinese architectural debate and acts as a key bridge in the field of architecture between China and the international scene. It is currently one of the largest among all the academic architectural magazines in China. For the past two decades, WA has also created and organized the highly respected architecture award program WAACA (WA Award for Chinese Architecture).

Bauwelt is a German architecture and urban design journal, published biweekly. The last issue of each quarter is published as StadtBauwelt and goes into depth with current urban planning issues. Bauwelt was founded in 1910 and has its registered office in Berlin. The journal reports in a politically independent, critical, demanding, and unbiased manner about contemporary architecture in Germany, Europe, and around the world. The annual Bauwelt congress and the Bauwelt award “first works” encourage the international debate about architecture, urban design and society.