Squatcity-Urbaninform Competition Announces Winners that Make a Difference

In the course of the symposium “The Future of the Informal” at the 4th International Rotterdam Architecture Biennale (NAI Rotterdam), the winners of the Squatcity-Urbaninform Competition have been announced.

The winning projects and honorable mentions were selected by the Squatcity-Urbaninform jury out of 60 entries in the categories: DESIGN (Space, Technology and Material), SOCIO-ECONOMICS (Participation and Empowerment) and POLITICS (Good Urban Governance).

The Jury was composed of members of the IABR curatorial team: Tim Rieniets (IABR), Fabienne Hoelzl (IABR), Can Altay (IABR-Refuge), Michelle Provoost (IABR-Makable Society), Georgeen Theodore (IABR-Community), Stephen Cairns (IABR-Reciprocity), Bart Goldhoorn (IABR-Collective) and Rainer Hehl (IABR-Squat).

Here are the winners:

FIRST PRIZE: Manavsadhna Creche - Waste Recycling, Yatin Pandya

SECOND PRIZE: Productive Public Space in Kibera Nairobi, Kounguey Design Initiative

THIRD PRIZE: The Cook, the Farmer, his Wife and their Neighbor, Marjetica Potrc and Wilde Westen group

HONORABLE MENTION (Runner-up on third prize): Rikea, Antonio Scarponi and Marco Lampugnani

HONORABLE MENTION (Subcurators’ selection outside of the competition): MYC4 - Eradicating poverty through business, Mille Kristine Klink and MYC4

The entry ‘Manavasadhna Creche-Waste Recycling’ from Yatin Pandya won first prize, with overwhelming acceptance. The project inspired the jury not only as a best-practice project that shows how to upgrade living conditions in an informal settlement by the integration of an community creche, but also by showing how to build a center entirely out of recycled material as a participatory process!

The second prize was awarded to the Kounguey Design Initiative with their project “Productive Public Space in Kibera Nairobi”, and the third prize went to the Wilde Western group with their project “The cook, the farmer, his wife and their neighbor”, Amsterdam. Both projects convinced the jury as strong design and community building initiatives to revitalize neighborhoods.

Because of its exemplary character, the curatorial team has decided to award a Honorable Mention to “Rikea” by Antonio Scarponi and Marco Lampugnani and also to “MYC4 - eradicating poverty through business, Mille Kristine Klink/MYC4”, although the project was not part of the competition.

The Squatcity-Urbaninform Competition went from February until end of May 2009 and helped collecting projects to kick off the Urbaninform platform. The Urbaninform Platform is a web-based network for best practices in the Informal City. Initiators are Rainer Hehl and Jörg Stollmann, curators of the section “Squat - The Informal City under Construction” of the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, IABR 2009.

Local stakeholders, researchers, architects, city officials, NGOs, and other actors involved in the transformation processes of the Informal City can publish their projects on Urbaninform and hence contribute to the ongoing discussion about the future of our cities. With urbaninform, microenvironments and their actors will get globally connected to a network for knowledge exchange and exemplary practice.

Images: Urbaninform