HISTORY of the ROYAL OAK COMPETITION


The competition was established in 1993 with the purpose of recognizing and encouraging the intellectual and professional development of a promising young architect, landscape architect or designer.  The first competition project, designed by renowned architect Witold Rybczynski, called for the design of a small public library and its garden on a public square for one of three hypothetical small towns in three distinct regions of the US: New England, the Deep South and the Southwest.

Laurie D. Olin who is a former Chairman of the Department of Landscape Architecture of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, designed the second competition project in 1995. This program called for the design of a hospice by integrating a small civic building, garden and grounds into a community for the terminally ill.

The 1997 competition was designed by New York interior designers David Anthony Easton and William Brockschmidt.  The applicants were required to design a “Royal Oak Foundation Center for the Study of Conservation” housed in the Gate Lodge at the Swain’s Lane Entrance to Waterlow Park adjacent to Highgate Cemetery in Camden.  The vacant Gate Lodge is an actual building that is categorized by English Heritage as being “at risk”.

The 1999 competition project was designed by Chicago architect Paul Steinbrecher and required applicants to design a small museum in a former industrial zone of a mid-sized city.

The next Royal Oak architectural competition will be held in 2001.