Creative Campus in association with the University Estates Department are running a competition to complete the landscaping around the tensegrity structure outside the Marlowe Building with specially designed seating.

The competition will be open to all students and staff in the University.

The preferred area for the seating is indicated in red hatching on the drawing below, but the jury is looking for the most ambitious achievable scheme. This may involve challenging the area shown hatched in red on the drawing.

A first prize of £500 will be awarded to the winning scheme, with two runner-up prizes of £250 each.

The Brief

Seating area for up to 30 students around the trunk of the structure and into the landscape. This would be useful particularly when there are outreach students visiting the School of Architecture for the culmination of the workshop series and for the Summer School. The seating should be available to all potential users

A low maintenance finish is preferred, and you must decide whether the solution is continuous, in portions, retractable or stackable. The choice of materials is up to you, but remember that there are opportunities to adjust the adjacent landscape. Enclosure, mounding, screening and hedging could form part of your scheme, and we would be keen to see what kind of seasonal planting might be incorporated. Decisions on colour will be important.

Lighting is already incorporated into the compass point ground finish, but you may wish to supplement this. A total figure inclusive of VAT of £33,000 has been allocated for landscaping, lighting and construction, and you will be required to provide a final price and explain your costings.

For further information, including important dates, please visit: http://www.kent.ac.uk/architecture/tensegritycompetition.html