The Association of American Railroads (AAR) announced on 4 February that the United States will serve as host of the prestigious 2011 Brunel Awards’ International Railway Design Competition. The Brunel Awards competition recognizes and promotes the best in railway architecture, engineering, landscape and environmental design, product design, locomotive and car design, graphic arts, and corporate branding amongst the world’s railways. The Watford General Assembly awarded the competition to the United States in recognition of the government’s commitment to rail transportation investment.
Supported by the Watford Group of International Railway Designers, an organization of railway professionals from 20 countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas, the competition is jointly hosted by the AAR, the International Union of Railways (UIC) and the Center for Industrial Design in Transportation, Inc. (C4IDT), the event organizer. Administrator Joseph Szabo of the Federal Railroad Administration and AAR President and CEO Edward R. Hamberger serve as honorary co-chairs of the Brunel Awards Committee.
The competition is open to all public and private railway organizations that own or operate common carrier rail services on classic mainline or high-speed rail infrastructure, and public or private railroad infrastructure owner/managers. Entrants must have had some involvement in the project, either in commissioning the work, owning the work, managing the design process, or overseeing the construction. Projects must have been completed after January 1, 2006. The deadline for submission is May 31, 2011. The awards will be presented at a formal ceremony in Washington, D.C. in October 2011.
Chaired by Professor Ronald Kemnitzer of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the Brunel Jury is composed of international design leaders including Chase Rynd, president of the National Building Museum; Angela Brady, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects; Roy Allen, president of the Transportation Technology Center Inc.; Ignacio Barron, director of the passenger and high speed division at the International Union of Railways; Niels Diffrient, noted American industrial designer; Pamela Loeffelman, executive director of Perkins Eastman; and Professor Lars Lallerstedt, Swedish designer and educator.
The Brunel Awards were created in 1985 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of England’s Great Western Railway which was designed by the renowned British architect and engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The competition has been held at three year intervals rotating among the Watford member nations and was last held in the United States in 1994.
Entry information and competition rules can be downloaded at
http://www.watford-group.org/brunel-coming.html. Additional information is available upon request from the Center for Industrial Design in Transportation, Inc. at brunel2011 at c4idt.org.
