DPA-X and Indigo Group are launching an international architecture competition, open to young architects. Candidates, registered alone or in teams, are invited to exercise their creativity to invent the parking lot of the future, on the Euralille site, in northern France, which will be under study for 72 hours!

AN INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE COMPETITION IN 72 HOURS

Open to young architects under 40 years of age, registered alone or in a team, “Carpark Futures Competition” invites architecture professionals to question the architectural, urban, technical and environmental potential of a revalorization of underground parking lots, through the study of the Euralille site in northern France.
The candidates will have to propose a series of architectural interventions in response to new practices related to mobility, urban logistics and, more broadly, to changes in lifestyles and consumer habits.
The jury, made up of experts from the world of architecture and urban planning, is co-chaired by Dominique Perrault, architect and urban planner and member of the French Academy of Arts, and Serge Clemente, Chairman of the Indigo Group.

INVENTING THE CAR PARK OF THE FUTURE

How can underground parking spaces be transformed to adapt them to contemporary societal changes? How can architecture respond to the challenges of future mobility and urban density in the broad sense?
Today, sometimes underused, underground parking lots represent important reserves of surface, volume and land, and their potential is immense. It is now necessary to go beyond a vision of the underground parking lot as a simple inert storage space, in order to allow its integration into major metropolitan developments, by introducing new programs, new uses, and new architectural qualities. The idea of an underground real estate development, or “Sub-estate”, can now be considered as a strategy for an optimized, resilient urbanism, imagining the city as a system rooted in the ground.