MAS and Architizer have teamed up once again to bring you Pitching the City 2015, a signature anchoring event of the New Museum’s IDEAS CITY Festival. Offering a platform for fresh urban ideas, five innovative projects, diverse in scope and scale, will be pitched to both an esteemed panel of experts, who will offer advice on how these ideas may move on to become realities, and a live audience, who will vote to determine the winner. In anticipation of the event at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral TONIGHT, we are pleased to present a closer look at the five finalists.
Pitch: Melbourne Docklands Surf Park
Name: Damian Rogers
This partnership between Damian Rogers Architecture and Arup Engineering brings surfing into the inner city with a large manmade surfable wave. Docklands Surf Parks seeks to generate a new public space and spot for surfing enthusiasts to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. With Melbourne’s long legacy of city parks, this team wanted to find a way to use the new redevelopment of Docklands as a catalyst for a new typology of parks. They asked: how can the City of Melbourne connect with the water?
Architizer: What was the initial inspiration for your project?
Damian Rogers: The initial inspiration for the idea came from a desire to find ways of enhancing the Docklands precinct and bring back some life. The Docklands is disconnected by large expanses of water, so we wanted to create a new way of using the water to enhance it. We wanted to create an activity that was exciting and would entice people to visit the area.
Pitching the City brings together people from a range of professions and disciplines. What is your background and how has it informed your involvement with this project?
I’m an architect. Having worked mostly with private clients, I’m increasingly interested in public space within our cities. With so much private development, I’m seeking the spaces in between that will allow us to inhabit our cities in new and exciting ways.
What steps have you taken toward realizing your project, and what do you anticipate will be the biggest challenge you’ll face?
We are making progress with some private investment that will enable us to proceed with the formal Development Application [i.e. Town Planning Permit]. We are also meeting with the government to discuss the proposal. Since we launched the idea, it’s been amazing how many people have offered to help us make this a reality. As we continue to get the positive support of the people, we hope it will help us to advance with the support of the government. Being in New York for this competition is a great thing as I think it will help capture the attention of the key decision-makers again.
Where do you hope your project will be in 10 years?
I hope the project will well and truly be built. When it is, we imagine that it will host surfing competitions and lifesaving competitions, as well as being used extensively by [the] public. Surfing will have become part of everyday life for Melbourne.
What do you think of your fellow Pitching the City finalists?
I think the other ideas look great. It’s great to see people with passionate ideas for making our cities better. Our cities face many challenges and having a competition like Pitching the City is a fantastic way to promote positive and innovative solutions. It’s a way to reimagine our cities.
Just a friendly reminder that Pitching the City 2015 is happening tonight, Friday, May 29, at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral — RSVP to the free event from 7–8:30pm tonight!