Oculus 2008 Editorial Calendar
If you are an architect by training or see yourself as an astute observer of New York’s architectural and planning scene, note that OCULUS editors are looking for writers for the Fall and Winter issues. The themes:

Fall OCULUS: Practice. Focus of this year’s Practice issue is on the architectural office — the culture and decision-making structure of NY-based practices, how the office’s design reflects the culture, along with the views key players in the firm.

Winter OCULUS: Competing for Space. Explore the growing competition between expansionist institutions on limited sites and the interests of adjacent communities, many in residential areas with moderate-income families.

If you’re interested, please contact OCULUS editor-in-chief Kristen Richards. with a brief outline and full contact information.

Summer 2008: closed
Fall 2008: closed
08.01.08 Winter 2008-09: Competing for Space

05.19.08 Call for Submissions: AIA National Healthcare Design Awards
The AIA Academy of Architecture for Health recently began the AIA National Healthcare Design Awards program, which will showcase the best of healthcare building design and healthcare design-oriented research. Projects should exhibit conceptual strength and solve aesthetic, civic, urban, and social concerns as well as the requisite functional and sustainability concerns of a healthcare facility.

06.02.08 Call for Submissions: Red Hook: The Bicycle Master Plan Design Competition
Red Hook is underserved by public transportation; this design competition seeks to promote bicycling in the area. The competition has three components: 1. Retrofitting a bike garage (or “loft”) at the Smith/9th Street Station, 2. Connecting this elevated train stop to the rest of the neighborhood via dedicated bike lanes and other bike amenities, and 3. Identifying funding sources such as the reauthorization of federal surface transportation legislation, foundations, and commercial sponsors. Prize total is $8,500 divided among five finalists. Registration ends 6.02.08 and submissions are accepted through 07.31.08..

06.05.08 Request for Proposals: NYCEDC Alternative Fueling Facility
New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking a developer for the construction and operation of an alternative fueling facility within the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center. The site, located along Food Center Drive and Halleck Street in the Bronx, is approximately 127,800 square feet and zoned for heavy manufacturing uses. It is anticipated that NYCEDC will offer the site for a long-term lease with a term of 30 years with two five-year renewals. Proposals should provide the retail sale of at lease one type of competitively priced, sustainable alternative fuel; however, proposals that include more than one type of alternative fuel are strongly encouraged.

06.20.08 Call for Entries: How Green are You?
AIA and Dwell invite you to prove “How Green Are You?” Simply provide four images of your green or sustainable project and write a 250-word essay highlighting the most important green elements. Projects will be assessed on their sustainability, functionality, originality, cost effectiveness, and design. Dwell.com editors, AIA architects, and Dwell.com site visitors will vet the submissions and be evaluated by our editorial staff and AIA architects. Three winners will receive a gift certificate from the AIA to apply toward their next big Green Project.

06.20.08 Call for Entries: 2008 World Architecture Festival Awards
The World Architecture Festival (WAF) will celebrate the work, concerns, and aspirations of the international architectural community during a three-day event taking place in Barcelona, Spain from 10.22.08-24.08. The 2008 awards are for buildings completed between 01.01.07 and 06.20.08. Buildings can be in any country and by architects of any nationality. International juries will shortlist the best entries in 96 building types, grouped into 16 categories. All shortlisted architects will present their work to live juries and audiences at the festival. Category winners will compete against each other in front of a super-jury, to win the ‘best in show’ prize, the first architectural Prix de Barcelona.

06.24.08 Call for Entries: Live the Box
This national architectural design competition addresses the issue of thousands of unwanted shipping containers that clog ports and the land around them. AIA Newark and Suburban and Young Architects Forum challenges designers to re-invent the box by utilizing shipping containers as the primary construct of an urban multi-family mixed use project. The selected site is adjacent to a major train station, and walking distance to the downtown and major cultural centers of Newark, NJ.

06.27.08 Request for Qualifications: Situated Technologies: Toward the Sentient City
The Architectural League of New York invites architects, artists, designers, technologists, engineers, urbanists, or teams thereof, to submit qualifications for an exhibition that will critically explore the evolving relationship between ubiquitous/pervasive computing and urban architecture. The League will commission five to seven teams to develop urban interventions — to be installed in and around NYC in spring 2009 — that will imagine alternative trajectories for how various mobile, embedded, networked, and distributed forms of media, information, and communication systems might inform the architecture of urban space and/or influence our behavior within it. Commissioned projects will receive support ranging from $5,000 to $25,000.

06.27.08 Call for Entires: Emirates Glass LEAF Awards
These awards are open to all companies, technologies, and individuals that have made an outstanding contribution to the world of architecture, and who continue to set the benchmark for the buildings of tomorrow. This year’s awards will be presented at a gala dinner on 10.23.08 at the The Dorchester in Central London.