The City of Calgary will accept entries for the
Mayor's Urban Design Awards 2011 in the nine categories described below. Each category has different requirements for eligibility and different criteria for selection of an award. Details for each category are outlined below.
1. Conceptual/theoretical urban design projects
This category is for a plan or a study of a significant area within the municipality that provides a development or redevelopment strategy for urban transformation in the midterm to long-term that has no official status. Urban Design studies, urban design charrette proposals, master plans, redevelopment strategies and a community plan of high inspirational value with the potential for significant impact on the city's development may be submitted.
Eligibility
The plan or study must have been completed after January 1, 2005; however, it should not yet have been implemented.
Criteria for award
The primary criteria for assessing the merit of the plan will be:
- Comprehensiveness - addressing a wide a range of factors affecting development.
- Innovative approach - proposals that highlight new ideas and/or approaches to interventions in the city.
- Clarity of presentation - understandable, readable and well-illustrated graphically.
2. Approved or adopted urban design plans
This category is for an Urban Design Plan, or Study, that has already been approved or adopted by the Authority having jurisdiction and physical changes have already started to occur.
Eligibility
The plan, project, or study must have been approved after January 1, 2005; there should be concrete examples of changes in the built environment.
Criteria for award
The primary criteria for assessing the merit of the plan will be:
- Evidence of success - examples of quality improvements to the built environment.
- Creative resolution - proposed solutions that successfully addresses multiple objectives and competing interests.
- Acceptance of the plan by the community - evidence that the community supports the plan and its implementation.
3. Urban architecture
This category is for a building or group of buildings that contribute to, and support, an urban design initiative. It will be an individual building or group of buildings, of high architectural standard. It achieves urban design excellence through its unique relationship with its immediate surroundings because of its site, massing and pedestrian amenities. The building will also contribute to defining a special relationship with the neighbouring urban fabric.
Eligibility
A new building, a renovated building or complex of buildings completed or installed after January 1, 2005 within the municipal boundaries of the city of Calgary, and designed by an architect.
Criteria for award
The primary criteria for assessing the merit of the plan will be:
- Compatibility with the urban initiative.
- Positive contribution to the public realm. Architectural excellence.
- Demonstration of the value of urban design by showing how the urban design plan directed and influenced the building.
4. Civic design projects
This category is for civic improvement projects such as a park, a public space, civil engineering infrastructure, etc. which have been implemented as the result of an urban design plan or initiative.
Eligibility
A construction project completed or installed after January 1, 2005 within the municipal boundaries of the city of Calgary, and designed by an architect, landscape architect and/or an engineer.
Criteria for award
The primary criteria for assessing the merit of the plan will be:
- Compatibility with the urban plan.
- Positive contribution to the public realm.
- Design excellence.
- Demonstration of the value of urban design by showing how the urban design plan/initiative directed and influenced the space or the objects.
5. Urban fragments
This will involve a single, small-scale piece of a building or landscape that contributes significantly to the quality of the public realm. This category includes small and modest elements such as street furniture, lighting elements, interpretation media, memorials, public art or other form of intervention that contributes to the beautification, enjoyment and/or appreciation of the urban environment. Projects can be of a temporary (but not ephemeral) or permanent nature.
Eligibility
Completed or installed after January 1, 2005 within the municipal boundaries of the city of Calgary.
Criteria for award
The primary criteria for assessing the proposals will be:
- Positive contribution to the public realm.
- Design excellence.
- Innovation and uniqueness of the element.
6. Community improvement projects
This category is for any built project, however modest, initiated and implemented by a community-based organization that enhances the public realm. Streetscape, public art, special installations, environmental initiatives and a banner program are examples of this category of submissions.
Eligibility
The improvement must have been completed after January 1,2005.
Criteria for award
The primary criteria for assessing the merit of the plan will be:
- Wide community involvement - demonstration of how the community at- large was involved and supported the improvements.
- Positive contribution to the public realm.
- Conceptual clarity and execution of the improvement.
- Innovation and uniqueness of the built project.
7. Student projects
A student project is an urban design project established jointly by The City and a local school or faculty within a university, and carried out after September 2007. The City and the university shall select a maximum of five student projects that are to be submitted for adjudication by the jury.
Eligibility
This category is open to students in urban design, architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning at the undergraduate or graduate level.
Criteria for award
The primary criteria for assessing the merit of the plan will be:
- Comprehensiveness - addressing a wide a range of factors affecting development, and providing solutions to the stated problem.
- Conceptual clarity and urban design excellence - as demonstrated in the illustrations showing physical improvements.
- Clarity of presentation understandable, readable and well-illustrated graphically.
8. The Mawson Urban Design Award
Thomas Hayton Mawson was an English landscape architect and town planner. In 1913, Mawson was commissioned by The City of Calgary to design a plan for the city's future development. An ambitious but unrealized concept, Images from Calgary: A Preliminary Scheme for Controlling the growth of the City now reside at the Canadian Architectural Archives in the University of Calgary library. This category is for an individual building or a composition of buildings that achieve urban design excellence and creativity through awareness of the Calgary context. Submissions should document and highlight how the building(s) contribute to successful city-building through a contextual relationship, for example, a residential infill building, a mixed-use or mainstreet building, or a building addition/renovation.
Eligibility
All types of buildings are eligible whether "landmark" or "background," new construction or a restoration/transformation. The project must have been completed after January 1, 2005 and be within the municipal boundaries of the city of Calgary.
Criteria for award
The primary criteria for assessing the merit of the plan will be:
- Quality of achievements over time.
- Innovative solutions to significant or complex revitalization problems.
- Positive contribution to the public realm.
- Special identity for the area based on the rich architectural heritage.
- Design excellence.
- Demonstration of the value of urban design by showing how the Calgary context directed the influenced the plan.
- Architectural excellence.
Please note: Not eligible for submission to the National RAIC Awards.
9. City edge development
This category is for plans, studies, urban design plans, architecture, landscape designs and site elements which respond specifically to the challenges and opportunities presented on sites located in all recently developed and newly developing areas of the city.
Eligibility
The plan, study, or design must have been completed after January 2003; it may or may not yet have been implemented.
Criteria for award
The primary criteria for assessing the merit of the plan will be:
- Comprehensiveness - addressing a wide a range of challenges and/or approaches to development outside the established areas of the City.
- Innovative approach - proposals that highlight new ideas and/or approaches to design and development at the outer edges of the city.
- Clarity of presentation – understandable and readable; clearly described and well-illustrated graphically.
