Concurso Nacional de Ideas – Puesta en Valor de la Avenida del Mar. Pinamar
Competition brief
Pinamar’s coastal avenue is the subject of a national, single-stage ideas competition promoted by the municipality and organised by CAUBA Distrito IX. The brief seeks a public-realm and landscape strategy between Quintana and Del Juncal streets: approximately 3 km of waterfront and 72,285 m². It asks entrants to connect the urban fabric with the beach–dune system, rather than treat the avenue solely as a vehicle corridor.
| Purpose and site requirements | Universal accessibility, coordinated mobility, city–sea connections, year-round use, coastal durability and maintainability. Proposals must respect the planned walkway between Avenida Bunge and Del Juncal and allow coherent phased implementation. |
| Competition type | National ideas competition; one stage, non-binding. A later design or technical-documentation appointment is possible but not guaranteed. No construction commitment is announced. |
| Eligibility | Architects with a recognised or revalidated degree, active professional registration in their jurisdiction and membership or registration in a FADEA-affiliated entity. An interdisciplinary team needs at least one architect meeting these conditions; this is not an unrestricted international student call. |
| Conflicts and site visit | Officials and people involved in preparing the brief or relevant prior studies are subject to exclusions. Relevant professional relationships with prospective jurors must be disclosed for recusal. A self-guided site visit is optional. |
Dates, fees and awards
| Registration closes | 23 November 2026; no closing hour stated. |
| Questions and replies | Questions by 28 October; replies on 4 November 2026. |
| Submission closes | 30 November 2026 at 13:00 as printed in the brief. Indicative conversion: 16:00 UTC, assuming Argentina time UTC−3; the source does not explicitly name the time zone. |
| Jury review / decision | 7 December / 14 December 2026. |
| Entry costs | The brief is free and no separate entry charge is stated. No specific refund provision is identified in the reviewed rules. |
| First prize | ARS 10,000,000 (approximately USD 6,515). |
| Second prize | ARS 3,000,000 (approximately USD 1,954). |
| Third prize | ARS 1,000,000 (approximately USD 651). |
| Award conditions | Payment within 30 days of the decision; discretionary honorary mentions. Tax deductions are not specified. The jury may withhold an award with reasons. Awards are remuneration for ideas, not a construction budget. |
USD equivalents are indicative, calculated using Banco de la Nación Argentina’s banknote selling rate of ARS 1,535 per USD on 16 October 2026. They exclude taxes and conversion costs and are not promised dollar payments. The third prize follows section 1.7 and the official announcement; the earlier summary contains a numerical typographical inconsistency.
Submission requirements
| Boards | Four landscape A0 boards, 118.9 × 84.1 cm, JPG, no more than 3 MB each. |
| Board content | 01: overall guiding ideas, chosen perspectives and concept diagrams. 02: sectors at 1:1,000, intervention criteria, sections and sustainability. 03: enlarged sectors at 1:200, sections and diagrams. 04: images and perspectives at a freely chosen scale. |
| Report | Separate portrait DIN A4 PDF; up to five pages; 12-point text. Images and diagrams permitted. File name: Memoria CNAVM.pdf. |
| Graphic identification | North towards the upper-right of plans. Upper-right board label: CN / AV. DEL MAR / 01, changing the number by sheet; uppercase Arial, 20 mm high, black or white. No identifying logos, signatures or QR codes. |
| Language | The brief and process are in Spanish; no separate mandatory submission-language clause was identified. Entrants should clarify any proposed use of another language. |
| Delivery | Register through CAUBA’s digital competition platform using a non-identifying email. Upload via the activation-email link; uploading opens one week before the deadline. Complete the participant-representative jury vote after uploading the boards and report. |
Organiser and jury
CAUBA Distrito IX is the district professional architecture and urbanism body organising the call for the Municipality of Pinamar, with CAUBA and FADEA sponsorship. The reviewed call establishes those responsibilities but does not provide an institutional founding history or a documented catalogue of earlier realised competition winners; no such record is inferred here.
| Jury structure | Five members: two promoter representatives, one from CAUBA’s juror body, one FADEA representative and one participant-elected representative from CAUBA’s advisers and jurors. |
| Names and expertise | Individual jurors and biographies are not announced in the reviewed documents, so their coastal-landscape and public-space experience cannot yet be assessed. |
| Advisers, not named jurors | Architect Jesica Meilan represents the municipality; architect Francisco Villamil represents CAUBA Distrito IX. These are advisory roles, not evidence that either sits on the jury. |
| Assessment | Compliance with mandatory conditions and the programme; the jury issues a reasoned decision. No numerical scoring weights are published. |
Rights and implementation
Important: the competition is non-binding, and receiving a prize does not guarantee further paid work. The rules preserve acknowledgement of authorship while giving the promoter extensive rights over prize-winning proposals.
Section 1.8 states that the first-prize work becomes the promoter’s property once the prize is paid. The following intellectual-property clause extends promoter ownership and permission to use, develop, adapt and execute all prize-winning work, wholly or partly, without an additional contract after acceptance and payment. It also permits technical, regulatory and budget adjustments. All entrants authorise institutional exhibition, publication, archiving and reproduction of their submissions. These provisions should be read together: retained authorship does not mean exclusive control over later use.
✦ ArchUp Competition Review
The brief’s architectural value lies in asking how a waterfront works across seasons, not only how it looks in summer. In the committee’s assessment, a convincing proposal would connect accessible crossings, dune protection, pedestrian continuity and maintenance into one spatial system. A phased scheme should show what remains usable while later portions are still unbuilt.
The municipal promoter and professional-body procedure give the opportunity a defined institutional setting. They do not, by themselves, guarantee construction or establish the individual jury’s expertise. The absence of names limits that assessment, while the requirement for a reasoned decision and participant representation provides useful procedural information.
The workload is substantial for an ideas call: four large boards and a report covering a three-kilometre corridor. Applicants should compare that effort with the peso-denominated awards and broad reuse rights, rather than assume a subsequent commission. The distinction between conceptual remuneration and implementation services is the central professional consideration.
Related competitions — Editorial team selection
For other readings of landscape and civic space, the archive includes the Eulsukdo ecological-art open call and the Limassol Arts Centre competition. These offer different scales of engagement between cultural programmes and their surroundings.
Time remaining for submission
Indicative submission timer, not registration: converts the brief’s 13:00 cut-off to 16:00 UTC on 30 November 2026, assuming Argentina time (UTC−3). The brief does not explicitly name a time zone; confirm this interpretation before submitting. Registration closes on 23 November.
Official brief and application
Consult the organiser’s brief and entry terms before registration.
