UDG Public Sector Award 2011 - Call for Entries

 The URBAN DESIGN GROUP (see www.udg.org.uk) is proposing to make an award for urban design work produced by local authorities and public sector agencies. This was first introduced last year. The objectives are to give recognition to public sector work and to publish some of that work in the URBAN DESIGN Journal (see UDG JOURNAL on website).

Each local authority and public sector agency in the U.K. will be contacted about the awards, those that are already members and those which are not, as the UDG wishes to encourage a creative approach to urban design from as many agencies as possible. Submissions could be made in some of the following areas indicating the way urban design is dealt with in the agency concerned or there could be other ways which can equally be considered: Design briefs, design guidance, design codes, design awards, vision statements, policy statements, urban design frameworks, conservation area enhancement, completed development. It is recognised that in many cases the work may have involved private consultants and this is admissable as a submission by the employing authority.

Initial submissions The agency concerned is asked to prepare a short statement about a particular urban design initiative. The statement should consist of a short text of up to 500 words and up to six images describing the nature of the work and why it is significant to be submitted. This statement should be available as hard copies with images and text so that this initial stage could occur without any excessive amount of work and not exceed two A4 pages – in colour.

There is no entry fee payable this year. To encourage entries the UDG has decided to offer any entrant that is not already a member 6 months free membership (which entitles the entrant to receive 2 copies of the journal and full details of activities and website information). For those already members there will be an additional 6 months added to their existing membership. An awards group in the UDG will meet to decide which submissions should be published in the journal and the short listed agencies will be asked to provide two pages of copy for the journal in its normal format by the beginning of November for publication in the January issue. Up to six submissions will be shortlisted by a panel of judges and these will be published in the URBAN DESIGN journal, after which UDG members will be invited to vote for the project they feel meet the criteria most fully. An award event will be held in February 2012.

Criteria The UD journal is looking for work that is a contribution to urban design thought and ideas; submissions must demonstrate how this is achieved. Entries should describe the urban design principles on which the work is based, the process - indicating how it has been developed - and lessons learned – indicating urban design conclusions that have been drawn. Entries will be judged on the quality of the project and the clarity of communication.

Judging The judges to be appointed by the UDG will consist of: An academic A private sector consultant A public sector professional A patron of the UDG An editor of the URBAN DESIGN journal

Approximate schedule of dates

  • Submission of entries by agencies 4pm Friday 2nd September
  • Jury meets to consider entries during September 2011
  • Notification of shortlisted awards during September 2011
  • Copy date for short listed projects beginning of November
  • Publication in UD journal January issue 2012 Voting by Membership / January 2012
  • Announcement of awards Feb 2012

Submission for publication Each short listed entry will have a maximum of 1000 words of text and 5 images to demonstrate the qualities of the urban design initiative which will need to follow the guidelines listed below.

Layout principles for shortlisted entries The layout of the two A4 pages should adopt the grid used in the URBAN DESIGN journal issues 115 pages 34 to 39 (also in 116 and can be seen on the UDG web site under UDG JOURNAL).Grid principles are shown below:

Margins: Top and bottom, left and right: 15mm

Text: 3 columns each page with 5mm gap.

Images need to be at a high resolution (minimum180mm width at 300dpi).

Text should be Times New Roman 9.5 pt on 11 pt line spacing. Text and Image area (apart from the header and captions) start at 56mm from top.

Any queries about the layout principles to: claudia@trockenbrot.com

Full guidelines and application form can be found in pdf format on the left.