Call for Ideas: Radical Urban Intervention

Do you go through the downtown (or city center) in your city and think something’s missing? Or that something could be improved? If you had the opportunity to bring in a catalyst that can change the character of the place – what would it be? If you could add a building or retrofit some existing ones or perhaps add a park system that could exponentially improve the quality of the downtown – wouldn’t that be great? If yes, then this challenge is for you!

ArcDeck is seeking proposals for ‘Radical Urban Intervention’ for urban core or downtown areas from planners, urban designers, architects, creatives and anyone related to the real estate industry. Select a city anywhere in the world and suggest a design intervention that could radically improve its sense of place and quality of life for residents + visitors. The intervention can be any one of the following proposals:

A new building typology that is missing in an existing city downtown area / town center (infill site);
Tear-down and rebuild of existing building(s) to create new one in its place or an agglomeration — but one which retains and houses the original uses in a creative way;
Suggest a mass transit intervention by way of improving / appending access to downtown and / or connect existing landmarks;
Propose park(s) / open space(s) / linear park network(s) on infill site(s) without tearing down any existing buildings or structures.

We are looking for conceptual ideas only and not detailed architectural or technical drawings. The intent is to generate design concepts that can potentially upgrade the character of downtown / city center and infuse new life in the urban core. The proposals should include innovative, original, previously unpublished ideas or concepts supported with diagrams, sketches, renderings, etc.on a single A1 size sheet along with a maximum 500-word text description. Our goal is to push the envelope and generate a dialogue about design-thinking at a city scale. Note that these are *not* meant for realization.