Application Closed
Number of Applications Allowed: 20
Entry Fee (Play with Your City 2019): $125.00
Images | Minimum:Min. 1, Maximum:Max. 20
Total Samples | Minimum:Min. 1, Maximum:Max. 20
Eligibility: National
State: South Carolina
Play With Your City 2019: Reimagining Lady
A design competition sponsored by the Columbia Design League
Play With Your City invites architects, landscape architects, designers and artists to reimagine an underutilized three-block corridor crossing through several urban precincts in the heart of downtown Columbia, South Carolina’s capital city.
Why the Lady Street corridor?
Identified by the Gehl Institute as a prime location for introducing ‘urban stickiness’ and a key pedestrian connection between urban districts, the Lady Street corridor runs from Main Street, west, to Lincoln Street, the heart of the historic Congaree Vista, connecting two distinctly different districts within a five-minute walk.
At the western end, amidst shops and restaurants, a short, abandoned rail tunnel, available for pop-up events, links directly to Finlay Park two blocks to the north. At the eastern end, contemporary Main Street mid-rise office buildings form a well-defined urban street wall, framing the elegant Statehouse, South Carolina’s architectural crown jewel.
See the site info
Check out Lady Street street views
What’s the problem?
But while both ends are vibrant, the pedestrian experience between them is fraught with challenges. Assembly Street, a 6-lane thoroughfare, once home to the state farmer’s market, now effectively separates Main Street from the Congaree Vista. Across Assembly, heading toward the Vista, a block of surface parking dotted with single-story buildings is bleak.
Entrants are challenged to consider temporary or permanent interventions to improve the pedestrian experience along the Lady Street Corridor. Solutions that incorporate and blur the distinctions between architecture, landscape design, urban design and art installation are encouraged. Entrants may work alone, but multi-disciplinary design teams are encouraged.
Winning Entry
The winning entry will receive a $5,000 cash prize and shall be constructed for $20,000 as a total construction budget. The Columbia Design League reserves the right to negotiate with the designer(s) regarding additional professional consultants to implement the winning design, as necessary.
Entry Deadline: EXTENDED UNTIL MAY 24, 2019
Projected Timeline
Call for entries: March 1 – extended to May 24, 2019
Deadline for submission: extended to May 24, 2019, by 11:59 p.m.
Jury review: May 2019
Winner notification and announcement: Late May 2019
Design Jury
Mike Lydon, Jury Chair | Tactical Urban Designer
Steve Benjamin | Mayor, City of Columbia
DeAnna Cummings | Juxtaposition Arts
Gabe Klein | City Transportation Specialist
John Fellows | Urban Planner & Designer, City of Columbia
Submission Criteria
Your entry should include the following elements for the blind jury evaluation:
- A summary of your idea including proposed construction (800 words or less).
- Up to 20 conceptual images (drawings, 3D renderings or visuals) in PDF format.
- Any submitted documentation should be formatted to 8.5 x 11 size in PDF format – 10MB max file size.
The deadline is 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 29, 2019.
Questions?
Please contact Betsy Newman, Columbia Design League’s Reimagining Lady chair, at elizabethnewman4@gmail.com.
This project was supported by a grant from the Knight Foundation Fund at Central Carolina Community Foundation.