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WU architecture competition invites ideas for building
The Steedman Traveling Fellowship Competition not only provides plans for the makeover of a local building, it also boasts the biggest first-prize award of its kind in the United States. The competition’s winner, to be announced March 31, will be awarded $30,000 to support his or her research abroad.
The Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University has sponsored the worldwide biennial architecture competition since 1925. The goal of the competition is to challenge new architects to create their best development plans.
“It’s the longest-running architectural competition [in the United States], and it provides a great opportunity for everyone involved,” said Daphne Ellis, administrative assistant at Washington University’s School of Architecture.
Architects who participated in the competition were asked to develop conceptual plans for the adaptive reuse of an abandoned St. Louis industrial building. The building is located at 1257 Lewis St., just north of downtown. Uses for the 100,000-square-foot building were left for competitors to determine.
The building is part of a National Register Historic District that is currently undergoing redevelopment. Many of the buildings in this district are remnants of the city’s industrial past. The building used for this year’s competition once housed the St. Louis Cold Storage Company during the period of river and railroad commerce of the early 20th century.
“The Steedman competition offers an opportunity to develop a proposal for an architecture of enduring cultural and aesthetic relevance set in a historically significant urban setting,” said Lawrence Scarpa, principal of Pugh + Scarpa and chairman of this year’s competition jury.
Scarpa said entries had to include a proposal for how the building could be used in the “present moment and immediate future,” while also keeping its eventual reuse in mind.
The building was chosen because it is in an area that is in transition and looking for a new usage is “a challenge to our throw-away cultural tendencies,” said Bruce Lindsey, one of the competition organizers.
The Steedman Fellowship is supported by a Washington University endowment that also funds the competition prize. The fellowship honors James Harrison Steedman, a decorated World War I veteran who graduated from Washington University in 1889.
The Steedman Competition is open to citizens of all countries who have fewer than eight years’ experience after receiving a professional degree in architecture.
Ellis said 197 architects registered for this year’s competition, but only 49 turned in entries. She said 197 registered competitors is the highest number the competition has had. Ellis said members of the competition’s governing committee were happy with the turnout, and many were not surprised at the lower number of entries.
She said not all applicants finish their proposals. “Perhaps the idea they had when they first registered didn’t come to fruition, so they didn’t participate,” Ellis said. “Some might also have run out of time to develop.”
A jury of professionals, led by Scarpa, will choose the winner of the competition. The jury is composed of Peter Davey, former editor of The Architectural Review in London; architect Hashim Sarkis; Nader Tehrani, associate professor of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ken Yeang, principal of Hamzah and Yeang Architects; and author and theorist Wilfred Wang.
The competition winner must begin his or her travel one year after receiving the prize money. The money can only be used to fund nine months of travel and independent post-graduate study outside of the winner’s home country.
Although second, third and honorable mention places are given out, Ellis said there is no prize money awarded to these participants. She said the $30,000 first-place prize is a definite incentive for applicants to produce their best work.
The winning entry and other acknowledged entries will be exhibited throughout April in Givens Hall at the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design at Washington University, 1 Brookings Drive.
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