The start of the new year puts us two and a half months out from the deadline for the Pruitt Igoe Now ideas competition. The competition brief and submission requirements are posted at pruittigoenow.org.
The competition takes as its starting point imagined futures that involve the remaining 33 vacant acres of the former Pruitt and Igoe housing projects. Submissions need not be architectural, and need not include a building program for the 33 acres. Essentially, entrants are creating their own programs and geographic boundaries. Pruitt Igoe Now’s organizers hope that submissions consider the larger geographic context of the site as well as the backdrop of land abandonment in the city.
Recent coverage of the competition has come from The Atlantic Cities.
In November, competition co-manager and Preservation Research Office Director Michael R. Allen published an essay on the competition process in Next American City, entitled “What Remains”.