beautopia - project (2005)
Turku, FI - Ideas competition
with Matteo Ghidoni, Antonio Scarponi
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The aim of the open international ideas competition was to find a high-quality solution for connecting a prison area that is going to be used no longer, to the surrounding urban structure and for new uses for the old prison buildings.
From the jury report:
"- Entries that are merged into the landscape and adapted to the topography:
Some of the entries in this group, for example entry No. 2 “BEAUTOPIA”, have to be regarded as theoretical and philosophical considerations, humour even, and cannot be evaluated in terms of the general evaluation criteria.
- Utopian ideas, megastructures etc.:
As in the previous category, the designs in this category also rely on strong independent ideas that are often theoretical or polemical and reflect more the architect’s own goals than the actual competition objectives. Even if the category includes a heterogeneous group of quite varying solutions, the typical feature is a megastructure that completely or partly covers the entire area, forming a symbolic or concrete basis for the proposed city structure. Some of the entries can be regarded as utopian ideas based on verbal expression, reflecting the difficulties and possibilities of urban planning in larger metropolitan areas than Turku. The ideas in this category are unrealistic and impossible to implement, although some entries present revolutionary ideas that brake the constraints of traditional urban planning. Entries No. 2 “BEAUTOPIA”, [...] are characteristic of this category and admittedly interesting as examples of their type."
