The Mexico-based practice SAC Studio de Arquitectura y Ciudad won first place in the Denver Architectural League’s ideas competition for riverfront micro-housing. SAC team members: Wyatt O’Day, Rodolfo Unda, João Barbosa, Jovana Grujevska, and Armando Birlain López.

On Friday the Denver Architectural League announced the winners of its micro-housing ideas competition. The contest solicited designs for an eight-unit building with micro-apartments that range from 250 to 375 square feet, sited on a narrow swath of riverbank in a sparse industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of downtown. The league invited architects to imagine a structure so virtuous—net-zero, built on a leftover slope of undesirable land, virtually no parking, etc.—that its inhabitants might just be theoretical figments themselves. (Who wants to live in 250 square feet and be forced to take the bus to town?)

All in all, the competition drew 70 proposals, 25 of which came from abroad. And what do you know, the winners all hail from outside the United States, which makes sense given this country’s general discomfort with small (New York, San Francisco, and this place excepted). Read more!

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Van Alen Institute’s ground floor space at 30 West 22nd Street

Van Alen Institute has just announced Ground/Work, an international architecture competition seeking innovative designs for a new street-level venue that will house the Institute’s work space and public programs.

Since 1982 the New York City nonprofit, which is dedicated to promoting innovative thinking about the role of architecture and design in civic life, has made its sixth-floor location at 30 West 22nd Street home to a diverse program of competitions, curatorial projects, and public events, becoming a venerable hub for design innovation.

Now, building on the success of its ground-floor bookstore, Van Alen Books, the Institute is moving its entire operation to the street level. In the process, Van Alen is putting its public-oriented mission at the core of its own office and event space, transforming the ground floor and lower level of its building into a home that is more visible, accessible, and participatory in public life, with a clear connection to the street and the city at large.

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Roth Sheppard’s design competition is inspired by micro-units in Europe, such as this short-stay apartment in The Hague by Maff. Photo courtesy of Maff

Architects love to design micro-apartments, but do people love to live in them? Jeff Sheppard, principal of Roth Sheppard Architects, hopes so. He and his colleagues at the Denver Architectural League are betting that tiny units will appeal to young Denverites who find themselves priced out of the mortgage market and who want to live in dense neighborhoods. The league recently launched a tiny-dwelling design competition that adds up to a particularly tall order: an eight-unit net-zero building on a difficult slice of riverbank on the outskirts of downtown. At 375 square feet a pop, the units will definitely be more generous than the 220-square-footers planned for San Francisco and the 250 now allowed in New York—but still diminutive compared with Denver’s 500-square-foot prefab tiny Starbucks. Read more!

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Photo: Design Libya

Beginning in February, the world watched as Libya under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi descended into chaos. News outlets worldwide were clogged with reports of escalating civilian uprisings and military retaliations, leading all the way up to that fateful October day when the Libyan ruler was captured and brutally killed by rebel forces.

As the capital of Libya and the main arena for civil war, Tripoli will long bear the scars of a bloody revolution. Yet signs of a new Libya are beginning to take shape: Bab al-Azizia, Gaddafi’s former military stronghold, bunker and palace in the heart of Tripoli, was transformed from a 2.3 square-mile symbol of fear and oppression into a place for public gatherings and weekly markets before it was finally demolished in late October. Of even greater interest to us, Bab al-Azizia is now the site for an open architecture competition.

Design Libya is calling upon architects, designers, planners, artists, students and the community to re-envision Bab al-Azizia as “an open space to be enjoyed by the public.” Though there are no secured government contracts, the competition will culminate in a major exhibition in Tripoli, along with a publication and a website. Though this may come as a disappointment to some, the competition format is perhaps indicative of a more democratic approach to distributing prestigious projects. While Libya awaits government elections, the competition will start to give some form to a “powerful symbol of a new, free Libya,” whether this will be realized or not. It is the starting shot for the circulation of ideas, the impetus for creative people around the world to contemplate the future of a country that faces a long process of rebuilding.

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