Submission deadline: January 25, 2017
Emerging practices and individuals working in architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and urban design are invited to submit work for the fifth Design Biennial Boston. The program showcases the most significant design leaders among New England’s early-career, independent professional talent through a juried exhibition and site-specific, outdoor public installation.
The Biennial provides an opportunity to promote practitioners and a network that fosters each participant by connecting them to other designers and the public at large. The mission is to encourage design excellence and create a more vibrant design community that will contribute to Boston and the region’s evolving culture, shape, and economic health.
Qualifications
Entrants must practice architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, or urban design in any New England state as principals of their firm and must be full-time residents of a New England state (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut). Entrants must have graduated from an architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, or urban design program, receiving their most recent professional degree within the last fifteen years (a graduation year of 2002 or later).
Criteria
Up to four winners and one runner-up will be selected based on the criteria of design excellence and suitability to the exhibition, emphasizing creative approaches related to contemporary design issues. Evidence of ability to produce an installation for the given budget will also be weighed. Note: all decisions will be made based on a review of portfolios of past work. Specific proposals for the Greenway should not be submitted at this time.
Awards
Each winner or winning team will:
–create a site-specific, outdoor installation supported by a budget of up to 10,000 USD
–participate in a curated exhibition, public discussions, and a broadsheet publication
–gain access to the Autodesk BUILD Space in Boston’s Innovation and Design Building to explore fabrication using advanced equipment and software
Autodesk BUILD Space
As part of the sponsorship of the Design Biennial Boston, Autodesk is offering each winning team access to its innovative new BUILD Space workshop. The BUILD Space houses more than 60 pieces of large-format advanced fabrication machinery. This research and development workshop is also an innovation studio that provides a venue for architects, engineers, and construction professionals to experiment in a shared collaborative space.
Theme
This year’s Biennial is coordinated with a series of art installations along the Greenway under the theme “Playful Perspectives.” Participants will be asked to create installations within this topic area, in dialogue with artworks that explore perceptual play, illusion, playful interaction, scaling, visual delight, and the blurring of boundaries.
Greenway sites
The Greenway receives thousands of visitors on a daily basis, offering a chance to engage with a diverse public and has identified specific sites along the mile-and-a-half park that will interact and engage with other works of public art commissioned for the 2017 season. Biennial participants will work with The Greenway’s Public Art Curator to determine placement of each installation within these established locations.
Past participants
The following 23 firms and individuals have participated in the Design Biennial Boston program: Ground, Höweler + Yoon Architecture, LinOldhamOffice, Merge Architects, MOS, over,under, SSD, Studio Luz, Uni, Utile (2008); C&MP, Dan Hisel Architect, Schneider Studio, Touloukian Touloukian, William O’Brien Jr. (2010); GroundView, Kiel Moe, Matter Design, Project_ (2012/2013); Cristina Parreño Architecture, GLD, Landing Studio, Mass Design Group (2015).
Curators
Chris Grimley, Michael Kubo, and Mark Pasnik (founders, Design Biennial Boston / directors of pinkcomma gallery)
Jury
Jurors will include: Dina Deitsch (Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts), Shauna Gillies-Smith (Ground), Mark Lamster (Dallas Morning News), Keith Krumwiede (NJIT).
These jurors will be joined by members from the sponsoring organizations: Rick Rundell (Autodesk BUILD Space), Karin Goodfellow (Boston Art Commission), Michael Evans (Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics), Josiah Stevenson (Boston Society of Architects), and Lucas Cowan (Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy).
Deadline/schedule
Submit a portfolio of prior work as a projection-ready PDF. This must be received by 4pm on Wednesday, January 25, 2017. Late submissions will not be accepted.
Email the file to: submit@designbiennialboston.com.
If larger than 5 megabytes, please use a file transfer service such as WeTransfer. Contact us if you do not receive a confirmation by January 26.
Winners will be notified by mid-February 2017.
Installations will be designed and constructed by June 2017 and will be on display throughout the summer.
Inquiries
Questions may be directed to the curators at curators@designbiennialboston.com.
