ABOUT THE COMPETITION

The European Film Center CAMERIMAGE and the Association of Polish Architects would like to invite all interested parties to take part in a Competition for Development of Architectural Concept for the European Film Center CAMERIMAGE (ECFC) Building in Toruń.

GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE COMPETITION

NAME AND ADDRESS OF THE ORGANIZER

The European Film Center CAMERIMAGE
Rynek Nowomiejski 28
87-100 Toruń

Correspondence address:

The European Film Center CAMERIMAGE
Rynek Staromiejski 36-38
87-100 Toruń
(all written correspondence permitted by Competition Regulations shall be sent to this address)

COMPETITION PROCEDURE AND GENERAL TERMS

1. The purpose of the Competition is to select the winning competition design, the author of which (competition Participant) shall be invited to single-source contract negotiations in order to complete a service based on the competition design. The object of the service is specified in the Terms of Reference included in Appendix 1 to the Regulations.

2. The aim of the Competition is to obtain a concept for the European Film Center CAMERIMAGE (ECFC) building characterized by the most outstanding architectural, spatial and functional qualities, including the land development of the relevant area, as specified in Appendix 7a being the effective scope of the competition design.

3. All and any communication as part of the Competition, i.e. submitting applications for admission to join the competition, submitting Studies and Competition Designs, submitting requests for clarification of Competition Regulations, exchange of information or documents or statements between the Organizer and the competition Participant or any other parties interested in participating in the Competition, shall be made solely via the Electronic Communication Platform.

4. The Competition shall be conducted according to the limited and two-phase procedure.

   • Phase I of the Competition
   •  
   • Qualification

   1. All entities interested in participating in the Competition shall submit applications for admission to participate in the competition in accordance with the provisions of Section III of the Regulations within the deadline set out in the Competition Schedule.

   2. The Organizer shall only admit Competition Participants fulfilling objective requirements specified by the Organizer in Section III of the Regulations to participate in the Competition and to submit pertinent Studies.

   • Study Phase

   3. Studies shall be submitted by Competition Participants invited to submit pertinent Studies pursuant to applications for admission, within a deadline set out in the Competition Schedule. The material scope, the form of the study and the method of presenting the Studies are specified in Section IV of the Regulations.

   4. Assessment of anonymized Studies by the Competition Jury in accordance with criteria set out in Section V of the Regulations and selection of five (5) best studies fulfilling the requirements of the Regulations, to be qualified to Phase II of the Competition.

   5. Invitation of Competition Participants whose Studies were qualified to Phase II of the Competition to submit their Competition Designs.

   • Phase II of the Competition

   1. Competition Designs submitted by Competition Participants whose Studies were qualified to Phase II of the Competition within a deadline set out in the Competition Schedule. The material scope, the form of the study and the method of presenting the Competition Designs are specified in Section VI of the Regulations.

   2. Evaluation of anonymized Competition Designs by the Competition Jury according to criteria laid down in Section VII of the Regulations and selection of the best Competition Design (1^st Prize) and award of the remaining Prizes according to the provisions of Section VIII of the Regulations.

   3. Approval of the competition settlement by the Principal’s Manager and official announcement of Competition results.

   4. Competition results becoming legal and binding.

5. The Competition is based on the principle of anonymity of studies and designs evaluated by the Jury.

• The Organizer assures that in course of the competition procedure:
• - it will not be possible to identify the study and design authors until the competition is settled
• - The Jury shall not have access to the contents of applications for admission to participate in the competition, and shall not familiarize them until the deadline for submitting Studies and Competition Designs

6. The winners of the Competition will receive a cash prize in the total amount of PLN 2,200,000.00 gross (1^st Prize – PLN 1,500,000.00 gross, 2^nd Prize – PLN 300,000.00 gross and the 3^rd Prize – PLN 200,000.00 gross, and two cash prizes in the form of Honorable Mentions, PLN 100,000.00 gross each), as specified in Section VII, and the winner of the 1^st prize will be invited to take part in single-source contract negotiations to complete a service based on their competition design.

7. The Competition shall be canceled and voided in circumstances stated in Article 355 of the Act. If the competition is canceled, the Organizer shall reimburse the Competition Participants for all costs incurred in connection with preparing and submitting:

• - Studies submitted for evaluation, up to the total sum of PLN 15,000 gross, after the Organizer has been provided with pertinent receipts to confirm the costs,
• - Competition designs submitted for evaluation, up to the total sum of PLN 80,000 gross, after the Organizer has been provided with pertinent receipts to confirm the costs

8. The Competition shall be conducted in the Polish language. The Principal shall allow requests for clarification of the terms of the Competition Regulations to be submitted in English.

OBJECT OF THE COMPETITION AND ASSUMPTIONS AND GUIDELINES FOR THE COMPETITION

CONCEPTUAL DESCRIPTION

The object of the competition consists in an Architectural Concept for the European Film Center CAMERIMAGE (ECFC) Building in Toruń, including land development.

The Organizer expects the Participants to present a modern, extraordinary design reflecting the unfettered imaginations of their authors in their architectural expression, just like film art consistently pursues unpredictability and authenticity.

The building and its development should fulfill the expectations of users with an elevated sense of aesthetics, a building whose functional and spatial solutions will avoid the clichés and derivative ideas which are normally attributed to festival venues.

The new ECFC Building will be situated in direct vicinity of the Old Town in Toruń, which is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Therefore, the new architecture of the ECFC Building should propose innovative and original form, while considering the high rank of the Old Town, yet avoiding historical pastiche.

The presence of the ECFC Building should serve to complement and creatively expand on the existing structure of this part of the city.

The land development around the ECFC Building is to attract cultural events to the Jordanki area, together with neighboring cultural facilities, such as the Center of Contemporary Art in Toruń (CSW) and the CKK Jordanki Congress and Culture Center, as well as the Marshal’s Office of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship building, which is also important to the region, due to its function. Additionally, the institution is also planning to add a new building at the back of the existing CSW venue. It will be situated in direct vicinity to the ECFC site.

The location of the new ECFC Building offers many advantages, one of them being a green belt on the northern and western side of the site which, as planned by Toruń officials, is to serve as an attractive green space complementing the cultural offer of the institutions situated in the Jordanki area, constituting an integral extension of their functions. This green zone is expected to be enriched to include new forms in the ECFC area, including gardens and green roofs (particularly from the northern side).

It is the intention of the Organizer and the City of Toruń, which has actively participated in the ECFC investment, to create a center for cultural events in the Jordanki area, a melting pot for art initiatives, as well as a friendly and welcoming space. Authorial proposals for the ECFC concept should therefore aim to create interiors with a user-friendly atmosphere but an elegant and stately appeal (particularly the Festival Center), which, together with the yard surrounded by culturally significant buildings, would create the “salon” of Toruń. Creating a grand square will integrate the existing buildings and will serve as the place where cinema personalities and the participants of other cultural events will be welcomed with splendor. A grand entrance to the Festival Center should be designed on the building’s axis, e.g. by reflecting certain canonical solutions which have already been applied in the entrance areas to similar festival venues and palaces in the world.

COMPETITION DESIGN AREA AND INVESTMENT AREA

The competition design area is located in Toruń, in the so-called Jordanki area.

Historically speaking, the Jordanki district was a suburb of the medieval city of Toruń, occupied by the city’s defensive wall and moat, which were later transformed into stronghold fortifications. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the area was converted into a so-called perimeter park belt - together with a new road system - encircling the Old Town.

The investment will be implemented on:

1. the Organizer’s own lots, i.e. lots 6/18, 6/20 and 6/22 in district 14, of ca. 1.85 ha in total area,

2. partially on fragments of record parcels which the Organizer will acquire from the City of Toruń for investment purposes, i.e. part of lot no. 6/10, part of lot no. 6/21 and lot no. 6/9 and 6/17 of ca. 0.55 ha in total area.

All of the aforementioned record parcels or parts thereof comprise the scope of the competition design (marked in Appendix 7a to the Regulations), of ca. 2.4 ha in total area.

This area should be adopted in the balance of the investment site development design at the stage of the competition design.
Since the area encompassing the record parcels listed in pt. b) are situated outside the Organizer’s own premises and are currently used for other purposes, there are some investment limitations in place in these lots, which were described and illustrated in Fig. 2 in Appendix 7b to the Regulations.

ASSUMED PROGRAM AND FUNCTIONS OF THE ECFC BUILDING AND DEVELOPMENT

According to the Organizer’s assumptions, the ECFC building and its development should include the following, main functional and program zones:

1. Festival center – a grand auditorium with a house, foyer with exclusive exhibition functions, front desks, box offices and other.

2. Market – exhibition and fair space devoted to cinematic products and technologies.

3. The House of Cinema: Museum / Art Gallery – exhibition halls dedicated to widely understood cinematic art (also design).

4. The House of Cinema: Cinema auditoriums – 3 projection halls of different size.

5. Education center – space dedicated to film education, trainings, workshops, presentations of film arts, techniques and technology.

6. Studio – space dedicated to film production (sound studio, wardrobes, post-production – editing rooms, etc.).

7. Underground garage – at level -1 and, optionally, at level -2, the viability of which should be studied as part of the design.

8. A grand, spacious square – in front of the ECFC Building.

Apart from these basic spaces, the building must also include their components: the foyer, a café, bars, a restaurant, cloak rooms, front desks, ECFC administration, VIP zones, conference rooms, a media zone with a press center, thematic film shops and a museum, amenity rooms, archives, storage halls, toilets, technical rooms, pathways and other.

COMMUNICATION INSIDE THE ECFC BUILDING - GENERAL PRINCIPLE

It is the intention of the Organizer to be able to connect all functional zones of the entire ECFC architectural complex using common, internal communication paths during major events (e.g. the CAMERIMAGE Festival). If several events by several organizers are held at the ECFC at the same time, it should be possible to separate the individual event zones (create separate, closed zones, accessible only from the square, via external communication, e.g. when an opening of a design exhibition in the house of cinema is held concurrently with a film music concert in the festival center, or an art fair in the market, a film school shoot and a TV program recording in the studio’s sound hall).

DESIGN GUIDELINES AND ASSUMPTIONS

In preparing the Competition, the Organizer ordered a communication analysis for the competition design area, as well as a capacity analysis for the pursued functional and spatial program, including an estimate of the costs to complete the Investment. These studies were consulted on by the City of Toruń. These analyses produced an Investment program which includes indications for the locations of individual functional and program zones in the context of the investment lot, and optimal capacities for servicing all communications within the Investment.

Since the communication analysis indicated that the ECFC parking service could be provided at level -1 only, the Organizer made a decision to add level -2 as an optional solution. At the competition stage, Participants should propose level -2 of the underground garage as an element of a studied concept, without requiring its implementation for the correct functioning of the ECFC Building. The Organizer will make a decision about whether to build the -2 level at a later stage of design works, considering the economic aspects of the Investment and the actual demand of the city of Toruń for parking spots in this part of the Old Town.

However, if a Competition participant proposes a different arrangement of the building’s usable space, which will propose an increased number of parking spots required to service the ECFC Investment, the Organizer shall admit the -2 garage level for partial implementation, in that those parking spots which have not fitted in the space of the -1 level will be located there.
The evaluation of competition concepts will take into account whether the location of parking spots at level -2, causing the need to build this level, is justified.

The Organizer has noted, however, that a preferable solution would so shape the building and its usable spaces that the Investment would be contained to level -1 of the garage in terms of the required parking spaces.

The area is covered with an existing zoning plan, but due to the ECFC Investment, officials decided to develop a new one. The result is a zoning plan (MPZP) approved on December 21, 2020 (decision no. ZN/443/2020) by the Regional Monument Conservator for the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship. The draft plan is included in Appendix 7c to the Regulations and its guidelines should be made available when designing the ECFC Building and developing the Jordanki area. Additionaly, information from the Toruń City Hall of the interpretation of individual provisions of the Zoning Plan, with respect to the calculation of the number of parking spots may be a useful document (Appendix 7h to the Regulations). This Appendix includes a model calculation of the number pf parking slots for the ECFC Investment, assuming a hypothetical functional program, which should not be construed as the number of parking spots effective for the Competition Participants.

The Investment site’s close proximity to the Old Town is an important issue, which affects the location of the ECFC Building on the lot, and thus the organization of program zones within the ECFC Building. Therefore, the zoning plan also specifies a zone for exhibiting the Old Town Complex profile, and thus imposes certain height limitations. Participants should take this fact into consideration in their studies. It should be assumed that the section of the Main Auditorium of the Festival Center with the main stage will be the tallest point of the ECFC Building.

The above-stated guidelines and assumptions should be treated as solutions which are indicated and preferred by the Organizer, but should not limit the creative process of Competition participants in their pursuit of even better and more optimal solutions.

The Organizer admits certain tolerances in the size of a given program at the following levels:

- for the Festival Center’s Main Auditorium: +/-5%,

- for the remaining ECFC Building program: +/- 15%, maintaining the recommended functionality of the building space and the land development.

In order to facilitate the integration of cultural buildings situated in the Jordanki area, i.e. CKK Jordanki and CSW, the Organizer agreed on with their users or owners on the possibility of connecting all buildings at various levels. In the case of the CSW building, the plan is to connect the -1 level of the CSW and ECFC underground garage and to use the existing entrance to the CSW underground garage as an entrance to the ECFC underground garage. The second link between the buildings is planned at level +1 through a link entering the fragment of the ECFC building situated in lot no. 6/20, on the western facade of the newly designed CSW building (the exact location of the entry of the link into the newly designed CSW building is presented in Appendix 7g to the Regulations). In the case of the CKK Jordanki building, the plan is to have these two buildings connected at the -1 underground garage level and, as with the CSW building, to use the entrance to the CKK Jordanki underground garage as the entrance to the ECFC underground garage. Access to the square in front of the ECFC building and to the building will be provided under an easement on lots no. 6/2 and 7/1.

The Organizer expects that the ECFC Building will be environmentally-friendly, provide a high comfort of use, guarantee proper health conditions and achieve high energy efficiency.

Further to the above, Competition Participants should consider some key issues related to the pro-ecological aspect of the Investment, such as:

- method of use of the existing green elements and development of new green areas (including green roofs, green facades, etc.),
- method of management of rainwater,
- communication and traffic solutions and the related traffic volume,
- solutions which lower the carbon footprint in the building’s life cycle,
- glazing solutions to ensure contact with the environment and natural lighting, and limiting the risk of occurrence of excessive temperatures,
- quality of details, reducing the thermal bridging effect,
- material and technical solutions applied in basic external partitions,
- the use of ecological sources of energy, including RES,
- solutions which ensure the high quality of indoor air,
- energy-saving, friendly, warm indoor lighting.

Competition Participants shall be free to select adequate solutions and determine their efficacy, taking into account the aforementioned guidelines.

DIVISION OF THE INVESTMENT INTO PHASES

The Investment consisting in the construction of the ECFC Building will be divided into two phases, which should be taken into consideration when developing the competition design.

Phase I concerns the construction of a Studio in the southeastern corner of the area belonging to the Organizer, the majority of which constitutes record parcel no. 6/22. Access to this building will be provided through the existing access road from ul. Wały gen. Władysława Sikorskiego (or, possibly, from the North, through the existing entrance to the CKK Jordanki area).

Phase II concerns the construction of the building containing the remaining ECFC program, i.e. the Festival Center, the Market, the House of Cinema, the Education Center and the underground garages, as well as the development of the entire area around the ECFC. The designer should incorporate a connection of the Studio with the building to be erected under Phase II of the Investment.