Written by Barkman Concrete Published on January 9th, 2012
On Friday, December 9th a group of barkman team members joined the judging panel for the University of Manitoba’s annual design competition. The mandate for this year’s competition was to formulate a solution to address the annual flood of the river system at the Forks in Winnipeg. Additional directives for the project stipulated that the design must include, pre-cast concrete units that could be installed on site, provide functional seating, and that the units must be designed in such a way as to facilitate use in other applications.
This year’s competition garnered the interest of 18 students from the University of Manitoba’s faculty of Architecture. The submissions were widely varied and impressively creative resulting in 18 incredibly unique solutions to the problem. The judging panel was uncertain that a single winner could be chosen for first place, given the high caliber of the projects under review. The final result was a three-way tie for first place between Trent Workman, Marie Levesque, and Emily Ferguson. Trent Workman showed excellent understanding of the way that concrete units could be used to address the problem and in addition, making provision for a variety of problems including flooding, drainage, and stability. Marie Levesque was successful in creating an option that was aesthetically attractive and yet maintained high functionality. The versatility of Marie’s design also suggested that it might be usable in numerous other waterfront locations. Emily Ferguson produced the most creative offering with a design centering around a series of floating concrete terraces that would adapt with the environment rather than react to it. In addition, Emily also made the appropriate considerations for buoyancy, weight, and silt build up beneath the proposed terracing. Additional winners included, Dustin Dilts, Stephanie McKichan, and Tamara Urben-Imbeault. Barkman congratulates all the students on their innovative, thought provoking entries.