2009 Natural Talent Design Competition Information Page

                                             This event was sponsored by BetterBricks

Download the Competition Brief

Awards - announced at Living Future, May 2009

First Place - $1,000 and one trip to Greenbuild Phoenix

Second Place - $500

Third Place - $250

Fourth and Fifth Place - Honorable Mention

Eligibility

The following groups are eligible to enter:

Students;

Those within 5 years of graduation;

Those who are 29 or younger.

Teams of up to 5 people are strongly encouraged.

Deadline - extended

Submissions are due April 27 at 11:59 p.m.

Registration deadline is April 16.

The Competition

Hosted yearly by Cascadia's Emerging Green Builders, the Natural Talent Design Competition is an ideas competition for the bright green young minds of our region.  The competition challenges students and young professionals to design a Living Building - and to tackle many of the problems facing our region and the world today.  Winners of the regional competition will be announced on May 6-8 at Cascadia's annual unconference, Living Future.  The winners of the regional competition move on to compete at the national level, with awards announced at Greenbuild.

The Challenge

Transportation is one of the biggest issues facing the environment today.  The automobile, North America’s favorite method of transportation, contributes to air, water and noise pollution, habitat loss and destruction, community dislocation and climate change.  This design competition challenges competitors to design a building and program that explore the connection between transportation, community and the environment within the performance guidelines of the Living Building Challenge. www.livingbuildingchallenge.org

Entrants are asked to design a Living Building that has portions of its program dedicated to transportation, community and the environment.  All projects must address the environmental impacts of transportation by designing spaces and circulation that celebrate sustainable alternatives to non-renewable fueled automobiles.  The Living Building is an aggressive model and best suited to identify these solutions at a regional or community scale.

Site Option A: Recommended

Download:
Site Boundary
CAD Files
Site Aerials (please note this is a large file and may take several minutes to download)

The recommended site of the 2009 competition is located in the host city of Living Future 09: Portland, OR.  As a city, Portland boasts a successful transit system and a solid commitment to social and environmental issues.  Not every facet of the city is a problem solved - and the 2009 NTDC recommended site allows for ample exploration of ways to improve connectivity, livability and community.

Site A lies roughly 1,000 feet to the south of the St. John's bridge in North Portland.  It sits on the eastern edge of the Willamette River, connected to the heart of St. John's by Burlington Ave.

Site Option B: Alternate

Option B is any site that adheres to the site requirements of the Living Building Challenge and located within the Cascadia Bioregion (AK, BC, OR, WA).  This site option is primarily intended for students who have a studio project meeting the program requirements of the competition, but sited in another location.  Other situations may also merit the choice of Site Option B.

For entrants who choose Option B, a narrative is required to explain the choice.  It is to accompany the submission, and consist of no more than 300 words.

The Program

All entries must adhere to the following guidelines:

• Transportation: The project must confront the issues posed by transportation, seeking a solution alternative to the use of single occupancy fossil-fuel vehicles.
• Public Space or Public Space Adjacency: The project must include an area of public space, or be adjacent to easily accessible public space, forming a core element of the project’s site design.
• Mixed-use: The project must incorporate both private and public space, and consider the interplay between public space and private development.
• Solar Envelope: All projects must consider the solar envelope of the site and the site’s development on adjoining properties.

In addition, entries choosing Site A must adhere to the following additional guidelines:

• Develop the site and create a Living Building(s) that facilitate a transit center between ground transit and a public water transit system(s).  Include spaces that support the demands of a mixed-use development, simultaneously providing required support spaces of transportation systems that are proposed in the design.  Ground and water transit systems will be proposed and integrated by the entrant.
• Incorporate the planned development of the Willamette Greenway Trail alignment as addressed by the City of Portland in the North Reach Riverplan.
• Include a controlled rail crossing onto the site
• Design to incorporate ground transit system(s) that will travel down Burlington Avenue to access the site and provide ground transportation network.
• Enhance the region by providing a transportation center that will stimulate the development from industrial use into a vibrant, mixed-use area.