Melbourne project takes on New York in start-up pitch

Docklands Surf Park by Damian Rogers Architecture and Arup Engineering has been shortlisted to compete in a pitching competition held in New York City.

The project proposes to create an artificial surf beach at the end of Central Pier in Victoria Harbour. It includes a sandy beach, lawn area and a large pool with waves up to 1.5 metres for experienced surfers. The water would be filtered from the harbour and heated all year round.

Docklands Surf Park by Damian Rogers Architecture and Arup Engineering.

Docklands Surf Park by Damian Rogers Architecture and Arup Engineering.

The surf park concept is the only foreign project in the biennial Pitching the City competition organised by the Municipal Art Society of New York and Architizer. Its creators will be pitching against four US-based proposals, three are native to New York:

  • East River Skyway by Daniel Levy, a high-speed aerial cable car system between Brooklyn and Queens.
  • NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative by Mark Scott (duendenatural), Paula Z. Segal (596 Acres), and Caroline Woolard (NYCTBD and OurGoods), an investment fund to help cooperatives, small business and community-based organizations purchase permanent and affordable workspaces.
  • Open Lobby by Lindsey May, a network of co-working spaces in underused, overlooked office towers of Midtown East.
  • The Miami Underline by Meg Daly (Friends of the Underline) and Hamish Smyth (Pentagram), a linear park to transform underused land below Miami’s MetroRail.

The five finalists in the 2015 Pitching the City competition will present their urban ideas to a live audience and expert panel which includes Shohei Shigematsu (principal of OMA), Majora Carter (Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and urban-revitalization strategist), and Scott Anderson (cofounder of design and technology company Control Group).

The panel will offer advice on how to turn the ideas into a reality and a winner will be chosen by the audience in a live poll on the night.

The pitch will be held at the Old St Patrick Cathedral in Lower Manhattan on Friday 29 May 2015. The competition is the drawcard event for the New Museum’s Ideas City Festival.

The winner of the 2013 Pitching the City was +Pool, a conceptual project to create a floating pool in New York East River. Since winning the pitch, the project is now on its way to becoming a reality with backing from within and beyond the architecture industry. +Pool is tentatively set to open in 2018.

More industry news

See all
The proposed Gurrowa Place designed by NH Architecture, Kerstin Thompson Architects, 3XN Australia, and Searle × Waldron Architecture. Queen Victoria Market towers approved

The Victorian Department of Transport and Planning has approved a $1.7 billion project to create three towers adjacent to Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market.

The building’s design incorporates elements to reference both Vietnamese and Australian culture. ‘Nationally significant’ cultural museum on its way

Brimbank City Council in Melbourne’s north west has agreed to sell a parcel of land to the Vietnamese Museum of Australia, paving the way for …

Most read

Latest on site

LATEST PRODUCTS