Open Call New York Urban Design Competition

OK, I just came accross this and I'm actually not too sure what this exactly about.It looks too awesome to ignore and I had to post about it.

Submissions due July 14

"Urban Design Week is a new public festival created
to engage New Yorkers in the fascinating and complex issues of the public realm, and to celebrate the streetscapes, sidewalks, and public spaces at the
heart of city life. Through an open-call ideas competition and a rich roster of discussions, tours, screenings, workshops, and events across the five boroughs, UDW will highlight the fact that cities are made by collective effort, and that each of us can play a part."

Near As I can tell this is an open call to any designer, artist, architect or urbanist with an idea to respond to a particular "NY Challenge"

The challenges themselves are the product of public input--

"Wouldn't it be great if...."

Some challenges are vague-but others are specific concepts-an urbanist, or person with more specific knowledge might flesh out.

A Random Sample

#117 Wouldn’t it be great if...It was actually feasible to get through the crazy intersections in front of Lincoln Center


#585 Wouldn’t it be great if...86th street was closed off to cars and had a light rail running across town.

#473 Wouldn’t it be great if...Flatbush had a green and social center

#306 Wouldn’t it be great if...there were bike commuter depots.

#538 Wouldn’t it be great if...highway underpasses had light installations-slash-pigeon repellers

#455 Wouldn’t it be great if...all that unused (or underused) land underneath the Williamsburg Bridge (Manhattan side) could be put to some productive or recreational use??

#456 Wouldn’t it be great if...building owners had more incentive to convert their rooftops into landscaped spaces, thereby reducing heat island gain and creating more open space for their residents?

#466 Wouldn’t it be great if...people and buildings didn't have to leave all of their garbage on the street in giant piles of bags, and instead had recycling and waste receptacles at the ends of the streets like they do in Europe?

#432 Wouldn’t it be great if...we used more of the old armories around the city for arts and cultural activities, like the one on Park avenue.

By the City / For the City

Calling all Designers: New Yorkers shared hundreds of ways that they think the city’s public realm could be designed to make it smarter, more beautiful and livable, and now we’re asking architects, designers, artists, and urbanists to respond to their challenge!

Now it’s your turn: Look through 500+ ideas we received, define your site, and apply your design skills to give visual form those ideas.

Together, all of these ideas – from citizens and designers alike – will be form a collective portrait of how we imagine the future, a crowdsourced testament to the ingenuity the many people who love this city. All of the submissions will be gathered in the Atlas of Possibility for the Future of New York, an exhibition and book that we’ll launch at this September’s first-ever Urban Design Week.

Check out all the details and ideas here