FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JULY 7, 1998

LIBRARY FOR THE INFORMATION AGE:
ACADIA ANNOUNCES THE FIRST INTERNET-BASED DESIGN COMPETITION

"Letizia Alvarez de Toledo has observed that this vast Library is useless: rigorously speaking, a single volume would be sufficient, a volume of ordinary format, printed in nine or ten point type, containing an infinite number of infinitely thin leaves. (In the early seventeenth century, Cavalieri said that all solid bodies are the superposition of an infinite number of planes.) The handling of this silky vade mecum would not be convenient: each apparent page would unfold into other analogous ones; the inconceivable middle page would have no reverse."

The Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), announced its first Internet-based design competition for a "Library for the Information Age." The competition calls for design of a library that takes full advantage of information technology while still serving the library's inherited roles in culture and society. According to the brief, design proposals may incorporate spatial simulation (cyberspaces) and/or physical solutions in meeting the program requirements. The competition is open to both student and professional designers worldwide.

The most interesting aspect of the competition is that relies entirely on Internet technologies for the submission of entries and the jury review. Competitors will submit design proposals as web pages accessible by Internet browsers. The jury will review design submissions solely over the Internet.

According to Branko Kolarevic, ACADIA President and Chairman of the Organizing Committee, "ACADIA is organizing this competition with the principal aim of promoting the use of digital design media and the Internet in architecture." This goal is in line with the mission of the association, formed seventeen years ago at a meeting at the Carnegie-Mellon University "for the purpose of facilitating communication and information exchange regarding the use of computers in architecture, planning and building science." ACADIA presently has more than three hundred members worldwide, mostly from academia, who convene each year in October for the annual conference (the 1998 conference is hosted by Laval University in Quebec City, Canada). It publishes the conference proceedings and a quarterly journal.

Why choose Internet as a competition medium? "The increasing spatialization of the Internet offers new opportunities to architects," according to Kolarevic. "The computer is more than a drafting instrument; it is a device for generating a new symbolic, social environment--cyberspace. Cyberspace can represent information as text, graphics, or objects and environments. It can orient viewers within the information spaces of work and play. They compare--and possibly compete--with the architecture of the physical world," argues Peter Anders, another member of the Competition Organizing Committee.

Why a library? "New technologies, particularly electronic media, have radically influenced the program and typology of the library. Libraries, through their expanding use of computers and the Internet, now hover between physical and cyberspaces," according to Kolarevic. Going a step further, Anders argues that "as access to cyberspace will increasingly rely on our intuitive understanding of space, our libraries will become spatial hybrids or cybrids taking full advantage of these modes of existence, capitalizing on their relationship." Yet, both Kolarevic and Anders admit that in spite of social, technological, and material changes, the essence of the library has not changed--it remains a hushed place of learning. Indeed, a review of its typological development reveals consistencies and diversity that are instructive in projecting the future of the library.

Accordingly, the competition calls for design of a library existing in physical or electronic environments, or in both, as a "cybrid" building. While the site, physical size and details of the library program are at the discretion of the designer, the minimum programmatic requirements are set. They are based on a conventional library program and may be used to design a physical solution for this competition. Library proposals, intended to be spatial simulations, must justify ways in which their cyberspaces satisfy the program. Similarly, designers submitting "cybrid" libraries must decide which program elements should be physical and which virtual or "cybereal." The degree to which the "cybrid" solution is physical is up to the designer.

Competition entries will be judged by James Glymph, Principal, Frank O. Gehry and Associates, Robert Ivy, Editor in Chief, Architectural Record Magazine, Greg Lynn, Design Principal, FORM, and Instructor, Columbia University and UCLA, Thom Mayne, Principal, Morphosis Architects, and Professor, UCLA School of Art and Architecture, and William Mitchell, Professor and Dean, MIT School of Architecture and Planning.

The first prize is $3,000, the second $1,500, and the third $800. Two awards of merit, each $300, will be also given. In addition, all prizes include a choice of software provided by the competition sponsors (Autodesk, auto-des-sys, and Microsoft) and contributors (Bentley Systems, Diehl Graphsoft, and Graphisoft). All prizes will be awarded at the discretion of the jury. Winning proposals will be announced in ACADIA Quarterly, ACSA News, and the Architectural Record magazine. The competition is also supported by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), and the Computer-Aided Practice Professional Interest Area (CAP PIA) of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

The registration deadline is October 15, 1998, and the submissions are due on January 31, 1999. For registration information, submission requirements, and other information related to the competition visit ACADIA's web site at http://www.acadia.org/competition/.