Competition open call: ‘Power Walks!’

LFA and the City of London Corporation have launched a new design competition for a series of on-street interventions within the City Cluster. With the City of London returning to the LFA as a Festival Hub for the third time next June, the competition seeks animate and enhance the City’s public realm, while encouraging use of alternative and improved pedestrian routes, away from busy main roads.

©Clive Totman

Architects, designers and artists are invited to develop proposals for a colourful and creative trail of interventions, as a wayfinding tool to encourage the City’s 8,000 residents, 513,000 workers and over 10 million tourists to take in more of their surroundings and explore the City Cluster’s local heritage. The competition seeks to create a narrative between key City destinations with playful and interactive design elements, that together, can shape a more engaging, friendly and less polluted journey through the area.

With the City Cluster an ever-expanding part of the City, its network of streets and public spaces offers significant scope for public realm infrastructure as the area continues to evolve as a world-class business destination and a bustling hub for culture and leisure.

Tying in with the ‘City Cluster Vision’ for an exceptional urban environment, the competition offers the unique opportunity to transform pockets of the City’s public space into exciting and welcoming destinations in their own right, while also exploring the untapped potential of public realm between buildings. In addition to bringing greenery and imagination to the City Cluster, entrants are also encouraged to consider the Festival’s 2020 theme, and how proposals could explore and challenge the power of choice, information and the individual.

The competition will be judged by an expert panel, including:

• Patrick Hegarty (Open Spaces Technical Manager – City of London Corporation)
• Tanya Parkin (Associate Director, Eric Parry Architects)
• Francesca Perry (Deputy Editor, Blueprint magazine)
• Giles Radford (Highways Manager – City of London Corporation)
• Tamsie Thomson (Director, London Festival of Architecture)
• Rob Timmer (City Public Realm Project Manager – City of London Corporation)
• Representative of the Eastern City Partnership

Following the shortlisting, up to two winning teams will be revealed in February 2020 and awarded a total project budget of £44,000 each, in order to develop a fully costed, feasible design that can be installed in time for the London Festival of Architecture 2020, subject to planning consent.

The deadline for submissions is 8am on 20 January 2020. Further information for entrants is available here.

[THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED]

Tamsie Thomson, director of the London Festival of Architecture, said:

“With hundreds of thousands of visitors passing through the City each month, this competition is a brilliant opportunity to demonstrate how high-quality design can make a positive, long-lasting difference to the public realm we experience every day. We’re delighted to once again be working with the City of London Corporation as our vibrant competition programme continues to grow in ever-exciting directions, and we’re grateful to the team for sharing our vision for celebrating design talent across the capital.

As the LFA explores the theme of ‘power’ in 2020, we hope to see the Power Walks! competition start an important conversation on role of design in opening up our public realm for more people to discover and I’m looking forward to seeing this transform into some bold and imaginative responses to the brief.”

Alastair Moss, Planning and Transportation Committee Chair at the City of London Corporation said:

“The City Cluster is home to innovative and iconic design so it is fitting that this new competition encourages creative use of public realm to engage workers, residents and visitors in their surroundings. We are committed to delivering a world-class environment for people to enjoy as the Square Mile continues to evolve.