California Architectural Foundation 2011-12 William Turnbull Competition
Posted April 1, 2011 12:00 AM by Terrence Murphey    

The California Architectural Foundation, in partnership with the Arid Lands Institute at Woodbury University and the AIACC Academy for Emerging Professionals, announces the 2011-2012 William Turnbull Competition: Drylands Design: An Open Ideas Competition for Retrofitting the American West. Design teams are invited to generate progressive proposals that suggest to policy makers and the public creative alternatives for the American west, ideas that may be replicated throughout the world.

Effective design strategies for sustaining the US West in the face of water scarcity and hydrologic variability brought on by climate change require reaching beyond traditional disciplinary and jurisdictional boundaries. Recognizing that the west requires new, integrated architectures, infrastructures, and urbanisms that promote adaptation and resilience, Drylands Design seeks innovation in architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, regional planning, and infrastructure design. Teams are invited to address water supply, water quality, water access, and the interdependency of water and energy. Drylands Design seeks visionary proposals from multidisciplinary design teams that anticipate science and policy perspectives as necessary dimensions of intelligent design response, and exploit beauty as an instrument of resilience and adaptation.

The competition brief and registration details will be available in mid April 2011. The competition will be conducted from August through mid-December 2011, and is open to all architects, landscape architects, urban designers, planners, engineers, educators, students and others interested in arid lands issues. Awards will include multiple prizes in two categories: Professional and Student Teams selected from the Professional category will receive research grants to develop and present their work at the Arid Lands Institute's Drylands Design Conference in March 2012.

Bill Liskamm, FAIA, will serve as Competition Advisor you may contact him via email at turnbullcomp@gmail.com for additional information.

The Organizers
The California Architectural Foundation (CAF), the outreach arm of the AIA California Council, is dedicated to the advancement of sustainable communities through support of research and education. CAF is assisted in implementing this competition by the AIA California Council Academy for Emerging Professionals.

The Arid Lands Institute (ALI) at Woodbury University, Burbank, CA, is a self-sustaining education, research, and outreach center dedicated to issues of aridity, climate change, and the design of the built environment. The mission of ALI is to train designers, leaders, and citizens to be resourceful and inventive in employing integrated, low-carbon watershed planning and design strategies in the West. For more information, see: aridlands.woodbury.edu

CAF + ALI have joined together to provide leadership in an area critical to California's and the west's future. Through lectures, workshops, design competitions, exhibitions, and a major conference showcasing design excellence at the nexus of water, energy, and climate change, ALI and CAF are committed to promoting high-impact strategies for water- and energy-smart design at multiple scales: infrastructure, landscape, urbanism, and architecture.