1. ArchDaily
  2. Public Art

Public Art: The Latest Architecture and News

Ice Breakers Public Art Winter-Wonderland Returns to Toronto

Ice Breakers Public Art Winter-Wonderland Returns to Toronto - Featured Image
© Khristel Stecher

Winter is hardly the high season for Toronto's waterfront. Nevertheless, the annual design competition Ice Breakers aims to draw people back to the outdoors, populating the frozen harborside with installations celebrating the winter. This year's winning designs are currently on show, centering around the theme "Signal Transmission."

For a third year in a row, Ports Toronto and the Waterfront Business Improvement Area (WBIA) partnered to produce this 2019 exhibition. Out of hundreds of international submissions, the winning designs include an illuminated starlight house, kaleidoscopic mirrors, and arches of bells, now on display until February 24.

See all five winning installations with descriptions by the architects below.

Land Art Generator Initiative 2019 - Masdar City

Design a spectacular renewable energy landscape for Masdar City.

$40,000 First Place Prize

LAGI 2019—Return to the Source—invites you to create an iconic work of art for a landmark site within Masdar City, Abu Dhabi. Your artwork will use renewable energy technology as a medium of creative expression and will provide on-site energy production consistent with the master plan of the city.

Learn more here.

Outros Territórios – International Call for Urban Intervention

Vazio S/A, Coletivo Aurora and Eduardo de Jesus have launched the open competition Outros Territórios – International Call for Urban Intervention.

Outros Territórios (Other Territories) is a suite of ephemeral interventions proposed for a hilly neighborhood in Belo Horizonte, Brazil called Buritis. The plan envisages an instantaneous transformation of the landscape through the simultaneous occupation of the many stilt systems propping up the hillside buildings.

The Illuminated River will Transform London's Thames with Light

Artist Leo Villareal and the London-based architecture firm Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands are working together to design and install the first phase of The Illuminated River Foundation's public art commission that will illuminate architectural elements of the existing bridges, redefining the riverscape.

This installation marks the initial stage of the project that was announced nearly two years ago. All stages are intended to be completed by 2022. In its entirety, it will include 15 central London bridges - creating a unified artwork connected across the flowing river from Albert Bridge in West London to Tower Bridge in the center of the city.

Artist Alex Chinneck Unzips Derelict 1960s Office Building to Create Mind-Bending Illusion

A post shared by HYPEBEAST Art (@hypebeastart) on

UK-based artist Alex Chinneck has unveiled his latest architectural installation, transforming the walls of a soon-to-be-demolished 1960s office building on the former Kent Wool Growers site in Ashford, England. “Open to the Public” features an eight-meter-high double zip running down the side of the building, revealing the forlorn interior.

The double zip descending the short elevation is joined by a long single zip running the full length of the building, peeling back the walls and windows in a move inspired by the area’s history of textiles and fabric.

Ice Breakers Exhibition Brings Interactive Public Art to Toronto's Waterfront

Ice Breakers Exhibition Brings Interactive Public Art to Toronto's Waterfront - Featured Image
© Briony Douglas

An “Ice Breaker” is a colloquial term used to connote something that relieves inhibitions or breaks the tension between people. In Toronto, Ice Breakers is an annual international design competition for innovative public works that break up the dreary, seemingly endless winter with engaging, colorful, and humorous installations along the city’s waterfront that encourage spontaneous interaction.

Now in its second year, the 2018 exhibition is produced in partnership between Ports Toronto and the Waterfront BIA to bring five unique structures to life around the theme of “Constellation.” Proposals from enlarged bears inspired by the Ursa Major constellation to giant wind chimes were among those selected from hundreds of entries from all around the world, now on view until February 25.

See all five winning installations below.

Call for Submissions: Charlottesville: Identity & Design

The 2018 BDA Prize (Charlottesville: Identity & Design) seeks proposals for a site-specific work of public art that will successfully embody the values and aspirations of a diverse community. We seek proposals from artists, architects, designers, and citizens that will offer ideas for an artistic, cultural, social, political, or ecological foundation that a community may build upon for the future.

Brooklyn's Prospect Park Gets Covered in Thousands of Pinwheels for its 150th Anniversary

To celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, AREA4 and Suchi Reddy of Readymade Architecture and Design collaborated with the Prospect Park Alliance to create a public art exhibition that features more than 7,000 pinwheels. Called The Connective Project, the installation covers the Rose Garden in the northeast corner of the park with yellow pinwheels that include art and written work submitted by the public. Influenced by the vision of the park’s 1867 designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, Reddy's aspiration for the project was to create a playful urban retreat that sparks a conversation about the value of public spaces.

Brooklyn's Prospect Park Gets Covered in Thousands of Pinwheels for its 150th Anniversary  - Image 1 of 4Brooklyn's Prospect Park Gets Covered in Thousands of Pinwheels for its 150th Anniversary  - Image 2 of 4Brooklyn's Prospect Park Gets Covered in Thousands of Pinwheels for its 150th Anniversary  - Image 3 of 4Brooklyn's Prospect Park Gets Covered in Thousands of Pinwheels for its 150th Anniversary  - Image 4 of 4Brooklyn's Prospect Park Gets Covered in Thousands of Pinwheels for its 150th Anniversary  - More Images+ 2

Call for Ideas: "Public for All: Rethinking Shared Space in NYC"

Since our founding in 1995, the Design Trust for Public Space has solicited project proposals from government agencies, nonprofit organizations, community groups, and individuals through an open Request for Proposals (RFP).

Conceptual Monument Reveals Truth of Denmark's National Identity

The Pillars is a new monument in the heart of Copenhagen dedicated to informing the public through a combination of national data and artistic beauty. Inspired by other nationally recognized works such as the 10,000 Year Clock in Texas; Mount Rushmore in South Dakota; and the Fühlometer (Feel-o-Meter) in Lindau, Germany, The Pillars encourages both citizens and leaders to understand the facts of their national development.

Conceptual Monument Reveals Truth of Denmark's National Identity - Featured ImageConceptual Monument Reveals Truth of Denmark's National Identity - Image 1 of 4Conceptual Monument Reveals Truth of Denmark's National Identity - Image 2 of 4Conceptual Monument Reveals Truth of Denmark's National Identity - Image 3 of 4Conceptual Monument Reveals Truth of Denmark's National Identity - More Images

Storytelling Street Furniture Featured in URBE 2016

From the 4-6 of November, the Mediterranean Real Estate Fair, URBE 2016, featured an installation by São Paulo architect and urban planner Guto Requena. The public artwork, entitled “Can you tell me a secret?” is a collection of temporary street furniture: a phone booth that records visitors’ stories and plays them back randomly into five wooden benches.

Storytelling Street Furniture Featured in URBE 2016 - Image 1 of 4Storytelling Street Furniture Featured in URBE 2016 - Image 2 of 4Storytelling Street Furniture Featured in URBE 2016 - Image 3 of 4Storytelling Street Furniture Featured in URBE 2016 - Image 4 of 4Storytelling Street Furniture Featured in URBE 2016 - More Images+ 5

Call for Submissions: Gateways to Australia's Gold Coast

Australia’s Gold Coast is searching for an artist to deliver iconic gateways that are visually bold, expressive and memorable. The major public artworks will “bookend” the city with installation expected before the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, your artwork will be on the world’s stage as visitors and athletes arrive at Games time.

Request for Proposals: Walk this Way (The Broadway/Webster Project)

Walk this Way: The Broadway/Webster Project aims to transform the areas under, around and through the Broadway and Webster Street underpasses of the I-880 Freeway into beautiful, safe, walkable, inviting, green and iconic passageways between Downtown Oakland and the Waterfront.

Open Call: Winter Stations Design Competition 2017

Brief

Winter Stations is now embarking on its third-year, opening an international design competition to bring temporary public art installations to The Beaches, exhibited to celebrate Toronto's winter waterfront landscape. This year we are expecting to include up to six lifeguard stands, including an addition three by invited universities, across Balmy, Kew and Ashbridges Bay beaches located in the heart of the Beach community, south of Queen Street East, between Woodbine and Victoria Park Avenues. These utilitarian structures are to be used as the armature for temporary installations, which will need to be able to withstand the rigours of Toronto winter weather. The exhibition is to run February 20 until March 27, 2017. This is a single-stage open international competition, welcoming artists, designers, architects and landscape architects to submit concept proposals for Winter Stations' temporary artwork installations.

This Floating Desalination Megastructure is Designed to Combat California's Water Shortages

Subscriber Access | 

California is suffering through its 5th year of severe water shortage. Aquifers and rivers continue to dry out as the water provided by melting snowpacks is reduced, and even the heavy rain brought by El Niño this year could not relieve the drought. Authorities are wary of the long-term consequences for California and neighboring areas of the Colorado River, and Santa Monica is now seeing a growing number of initiatives to control the use of potable water and find sustainable solutions.

Most recently, a competition asked architects, artists and scientists to conceive sustainable infrastructure projects to improve Santa Monica’s water supply. Bart//Bratke and studioDE developed a raft structure named “Foram” that illustrates the future of floating platforms in sustainable development.

This Floating Desalination Megastructure is Designed to Combat California's Water Shortages - Image 1 of 4This Floating Desalination Megastructure is Designed to Combat California's Water Shortages - Image 2 of 4This Floating Desalination Megastructure is Designed to Combat California's Water Shortages - Image 3 of 4This Floating Desalination Megastructure is Designed to Combat California's Water Shortages - Image 4 of 4This Floating Desalination Megastructure is Designed to Combat California's Water Shortages - More Images+ 10

Call for Submissions: Glendale Arts Donor Wall Request for Proposals

Gendale Arts seeks southern California artists to respond to an RFP for a Donor Recognition Project. Deadline to submit proposals is August 16th, 2016. Further details including budget, timeline, and submission guidelines are listed in the RFP. To submit proposal, or for questions please contact Nina Crowe at ncrowe@glendalearts.org

Kids Design Workshop: Nature Play

This workshop invites both children and parents to participate in building unique playscapes with natural materials on The Greenway. Led by local artist and craftsman, Mitch Ryerson, each session will focus on the importance of nature play, group building, teamwork, imagination, and learning to build with new materials. This event is part of a series of family and children’s workshops hosted by Design Museum Boston and the BSA Foundation, focusing on design and play throughout the summer.

City Sketch: Post Office Square

Would you like to get outside this summer? Have you wanted to meet others with an interest in art and architecture? Why not do both together at City Sketch? Sketch-artist extraordinaire Andrew Guild will be your guide at this hands-on outdoor sketching session as you explore architectural sketching processes and techniques. Try your hand at sketching building facades and gain a better understanding of the basics of perspective drawing. Together you’ll venture out into the city to capture your own views of Boston’s landmarks.