Creative City Challenge at the Minneapolis Convention Center

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How would you remake your City?

Be a part of the revitalization of the beautiful convention center plaza as it is transformed into an activity center and gateway to Minneapolis. 

The Minneapolis Convention Center and the Mayor of Minneapolis are pleased to announce a new Creative City Challenge to create and install a temporary, interactive, site-specific, eco-focused “portal” to the City of Minneapolis on the Plaza of the Minneapolis Convention Center beginning summer 2013.  This challenge is intended to encourage exciting proposals and thoughtful discussion about how to make our downtown more vital, dynamic, livable, walkable and environmentally friendly.

The competition is open to Minnesota residents only, and it will be in two phases. In the first phase, the public will vote on all proposals, and the top 5 viable projects will each receive a stipend to produce a final proposal, which will be reviewed by a national jury of prominent architects and urbanists. The selected proposal will receive a $50,000 commission to produce a summer-long project on the Convention Center Plaza in 2013.

Initial responses are due by 4:30 pm CDT Monday, December 3, 2012. 

For further details online, click here. For a pdf of the full call click here. Email conventioncenterplaza@northern.lights.mn with questions.

Northern Lights shortlisted for 5×5 public art program in nation’s capital

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5x55×5 is an exciting program to commission 5 curators to each curate 5 public art projects for presentation in Washington DC during the  National Cherry Blossom Festival Centennial, spring 2012.

“5×5, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’s new temporary public art project, will result in twenty-five groundbreaking temporary public art installations that will be installed concurrently throughout the District of Columbia. DCCAH is seeking five highly-experienced and innovative contemporary art curators to select and work with five artists each to develop and present exciting, temporary art works in public spaces throughout the District of Columbia. The resulting twenty-five projects will activate and enliven publicly accessible spaces and add an ephemeral layer of creativity and artistic expression to neighborhoods across the District.”

Northern Lights/Artistic Director Steve Dietz was selected as one of 10 semi-finalists for 5×5. We will be presenting a final proposal in early December. Other semi-finalists here.

Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition

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Join us for the Pecha Kucha for the Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition (Weisman Plaza)

Back in March, the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration at the Weisman Art Museum put out a call for a Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition. Northern Lights.mn teamed up with Short Elliott Hendrickson (Bob Kost, team leader, and Rachel Baudler), EE&K Architects (Peter Cavaluzzi), and artist Christopher Baker, and we were selected as one of four finalist teams.

The broad outlines of all four teams’ (4rm+ula), coen+partners, and VJAA + HouMinn) proposals are currently on view in the Target Studio at WAM. On Wednesday, October 26, we will present our final proposals to an expert jury in the afternoon and to the public at large at WAMChatter. Final selection of will be announced the following day.

Join us Wednesday, October 26 at 7 pm for 24 minutes of exciting pecha kucha by the 4 cross-disciplinary teams about the Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition at WAMChatter (preceding reception at 6 pm).

Check out the blog of our team’s “discussions.”

SEH/EE&K/Northern Lights.mn/Christopher Baker team members

Bob Kost (SEH), Peter Cavaluzzi (EE&K), Steve Dietz (Northern Lights.mn), Christopher Baker (SAIC), Rachel Baudler (SEH), Michael Imranyi (EE&K), Mister Blue (SEH), Yehui Xu (EE&K), Dongshin Lee (EE&K), Gaylen Perkuhn (EE&K), Amier Hossein (EE&K)

Minneapolis riverfront design competition

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RFQ submission deadline: 13 October 2010

Description: Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) and Minneapolis Parks Foundation, along with creative partners The University of Minnesota College of Design and Walker Art Center, are sponsoring a design competition addressing Minneapolis’ Upper Riverfront, the area extending from the Stone Arch Bridge to Minneapolis’ northern city limits, along both sides of the Mississippi River. This project builds on the MPRB award-winning 2000 master plan and is the first demonstration project of The Minneapolis Parks Foundation’s “Next Generation of Parks”—a design-driven vision for a 21st century park system.

The competition will investigate new opportunities for connectivity, sustainability, infrastructure and public space along the upper riverfront and extending into the surrounding neighborhoods.

The competition encourages a comprehensive, integrated approach to evaluating the larger river/park system, creating a vision that:

  • Establishes parks as the engine for economic development along the river;
  • Knits both sides of the riverfront together with their surrounding communities, thereby transforming the river from a barrier to a connector;
  • Re-focuses the city toward one of the three great rivers of the world—the Fourth Coast of the U.S.—an extraordinary environmental amenity that defines Minneapolis’ civic identity, past, present and future.

Awards: Four teams will be short-listed and awarded $30,000 for design and travel. Winning team will be awarded a commission.

Website: http://MinneapolisRiverfrontDesignCompetition.com

Contact:
Mary deLaittre, Project Manager
Minneapolis Riverfront Design Competition
http://minneapolisriverfrontdesigncompetition.com