SARASOTA, Fla., July 30, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- The Sarasota Architectural Foundation has sent out a Request For Qualifications (RFQ), initiating a competition for a design and financial plan to provide alternative use and preservation of Paul Rudolph's historic buildings at Sarasota's Riverview High School, built in 1958, which are currently scheduled for demolition.
The RFQ is seeking up to five qualified architect and developer teams with demonstrated experience in creative planning and implementation of projects that include the use of historic buildings. Their design and financial proposals must include plans for revitalizing the Rudolph courtyard buildings for alternative use, financing the work and the long-term preservation of the buildings, and compensating for the parking lot and playing fields currently scheduled to be built in that area.
SAF's Riverview Committee has engaged Bill Liskamm, internationally renowned architect and environmental planner, as a professional advisor and facilitator for the competition. Liskamm has led more than 60 design competitions and has served on the National Endowment for the Arts' Competition Advisory Panel.
"This process has been successfully used in other parts of the country to preserve important historic architectural landmarks by giving them new uses," Liskamm says. He will manage the distribution of the RFQ to over 2,000 architects, AIA chapters and developers nationwide.
Liskamm emphasizes the importance of saving these buildings, produced in Rudolph's first public building design project, which incorporate a visual and spatial richness that characterized American Modern architecture.
The RFQ will be due by September 14, and finalists will be announced on September 17.
A Request for Proposals (RFP) will be available in mid-August, and a preproposal on-site briefing will be held on August 14. This will give interested architects and developers a chance to visit the buildings and have questions answered by Liskamm and Riverview Committee members.
Proposals will be due in November 2007, with a midpoint review scheduled for October 15. The Riverview Committee will be working with the Sarasota County School Board to refine and finalize the selected adaptive use and financing plan, to ensure that it meets the school district's objectives before the school board's March 16, 2008 deadline.
The Riverview Committee is conducting a campaign to raise funds for the competition. The initial drive focuses on matching a $25,000 grant awarded by the World Monuments Fund, with the goal of raising an additional $50,000. This project has been made possible in part by the "World Monuments Fund 'Modernism at Risk' program, founding sponsor Knoll."
For further information on The Riverview Committee's search for an acceptable solution that will save this icon of Modern architecture, contact Les Fishman, Chair of SAF, at 941.365.4723, or write to James Bowen, Chair of The Riverview Committee (james@bowenarchitecture.com). To download the RFQ or to make a tax-deductible contribution, visit the SAF Website: www.sarasotaarchitecturalfoundation.org.