Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition
One of the greatest and most reputable architecture competitions in the world.
And it has been around for ages.
What are the ingredients: every year one starchitect (and we're talking Pritzkers here: Koolhaas, Nishizawa, etc) proposes an idea competition theme (and the themes are very provocative and open-ended: A house with no style, A house with resale value, 9 square grids house, etc) and is the sole juror for the submissions. Submissions are one panel only (hard-copy till few years ago, now entirely digital), the total prize value is around 15.000 euros and the winners get published in the prestigious magazine The Japan Architect. It's a high quality competition, with superb submissions and stimulating feedback from the jury. Plus, if you win the Shinkenchiku competition, you'll probably be hired in any big architecture studio in the world.
There are some drawbacks, of course: there isn't an online/offline archive; the winning submissions are published in thumbnail size on the last pages of the magazine, so often it is impossible to understand them; the feedback from the jury is addressed only to the winners (together with the honorable mentions, they amount around 2% of the total entries). The money prize is of high value but I think that this is not the main drive for anyone entering the competition. It's more like ancient olympics with Zeus paying his respect to the winners.
What to learn from this?
Immense value puts the money in the background.
Still. it's not a business. Just the editor of the magazine is sponsoring a competition. Needs further thinking.
Central Glass International Competition
Quite the same model, except that there is a 7 person jury (still very reputable japanese architects) and the money prize is a lot bigger: around 25.000 euros + travel expenses to Japan for the winners. Probably because this time the sponsor is a company manufacturing architectural glass. And they managed to secure an online archive, which is a real gem.
And yet, it feels that the Shinkenchiku residential competition is the top one. Probably because of the Zeus.
Not a real business, but it works like this: Sponsors Competition.
And it has a western follower, International Velux Award, also with a big name jury, great prizes (30.000 euros) but with a slightly less inspiring brief (it's all about the light!).
luni, 2 ianuarie 2012
What about them?
awacademy.org
Now we're talking. And we're talking big: Great jury (starchitects gathered from all continents: Hadid, Libeskind, Bjarke Ingels, Kengo Kuma) + The theme of the moment (Green Architecture and Urbanism) + extended timeframe (2 years!) + intermediate prizes (media + industrial awards) + 12 great prizes (we'll talk about them in a moment) + online publication (the best 1000 entries) + book/catalogue, travelling exhibition and so on. It screams: we can't miss.
But, Houston, we have a problem (or not?) - absolutely no cash prize. It's all about visibility, networking, status and reputation. According to Mr. Karim Lakhani from the Harvard Business School, participation in a competition is driven either by extrinsic motivations (money, skills development, career concerns), by intrinsic motivations (fun, intellectual challenge, professional identity), or by both. Usually it's about money + signaling (extrinsic) + fun + intellectual challenge (intrinsic) + reputation (somewhere in the middle). But if you take money of the equation (and thus free yourself from all the hustle associated with), you'll have to compensate with some other extrinsic motivations (for example great career / learning opportunities ) and have some great intrinsic ones (good intellectual challenge, highly autonomous, and with great fun). So it's all about equilibrium. And they did it: instead of money, they give away the chance to secure an internship at one of the most notorious architecture studios on the planet. You'll work 6 months with Zaha Hadid, where you'll learn hell of a lot, meet and network with the other brainz in the office, secure a great CV and portfolio and, if you're that good, maybe a long-lasting job. Sounds great. And Zaha will choose you from other 1000+ architecture students and pin you in her brainz collection. It's a win-win scenario. Of course, big starchitects and a huge talented crowd attract big sponsors (Autodesk, Epson, etc) who will get a lot of publicity, and big magazines (Detail, Blueprint, AMC, etc) who will get free quality content and a lot of publicity. Again, a win-win scenario.
I like it a lot. Plus, the model is very clever, so to be 'planetary' attractive!
And who is earning the big bucks? The competition platform.
What to learn from that?
You can get rid of the money, but you'll have to compensate on high value.
Now we're talking. And we're talking big: Great jury (starchitects gathered from all continents: Hadid, Libeskind, Bjarke Ingels, Kengo Kuma) + The theme of the moment (Green Architecture and Urbanism) + extended timeframe (2 years!) + intermediate prizes (media + industrial awards) + 12 great prizes (we'll talk about them in a moment) + online publication (the best 1000 entries) + book/catalogue, travelling exhibition and so on. It screams: we can't miss.
But, Houston, we have a problem (or not?) - absolutely no cash prize. It's all about visibility, networking, status and reputation. According to Mr. Karim Lakhani from the Harvard Business School, participation in a competition is driven either by extrinsic motivations (money, skills development, career concerns), by intrinsic motivations (fun, intellectual challenge, professional identity), or by both. Usually it's about money + signaling (extrinsic) + fun + intellectual challenge (intrinsic) + reputation (somewhere in the middle). But if you take money of the equation (and thus free yourself from all the hustle associated with), you'll have to compensate with some other extrinsic motivations (for example great career / learning opportunities ) and have some great intrinsic ones (good intellectual challenge, highly autonomous, and with great fun). So it's all about equilibrium. And they did it: instead of money, they give away the chance to secure an internship at one of the most notorious architecture studios on the planet. You'll work 6 months with Zaha Hadid, where you'll learn hell of a lot, meet and network with the other brainz in the office, secure a great CV and portfolio and, if you're that good, maybe a long-lasting job. Sounds great. And Zaha will choose you from other 1000+ architecture students and pin you in her brainz collection. It's a win-win scenario. Of course, big starchitects and a huge talented crowd attract big sponsors (Autodesk, Epson, etc) who will get a lot of publicity, and big magazines (Detail, Blueprint, AMC, etc) who will get free quality content and a lot of publicity. Again, a win-win scenario.
I like it a lot. Plus, the model is very clever, so to be 'planetary' attractive!
And who is earning the big bucks? The competition platform.
What to learn from that?
You can get rid of the money, but you'll have to compensate on high value.
What about them?
Arcbazar.com
It's a small US start-up organizing competitions for small-to-middle scale residential, refurbishing and interior design architecture projects. The parties involved are a crowd of international designers (not restricted to professionals), a client who initiates a competition (based on the platform's recommendations, he sets a prize amount and provides a brief complete with CAD drawings and photos), the hosting platform and a cloud of contractors eager to force their way in very early (probably with a networking subscription or fee). There is no jury, so the client picks the winners: 1st gets 60% of the prize amount, 2nd gets 30% and the 3rd gets 10%. As far as I've read the FAQ's, both registration in a competition and initiating a competition are free. The prize amount is still somehow guaranteed and the general principle is that it should be (but not compulsory) around 2% of the construction cost. So far the designers and the clients are anonymous and the briefs doesn't provide an address. Communication between the clients and the designers is exclusively through the competition platform. That probably because the 3rd party (the contractors) will have to pay for these contact details. However, not visiting the building site or the actual building in case of a refurbishment/extension is a major lack. It will deeply lower the quality of the designs and the chances for those to be implemented.
The system seems to work: for a small community library in the US, of around 1500 m2, with a prize amount of 1500 $, 84 designers from all over the world (Indonesia, Peru, Greece, Canada and so on) are registered 3 weeks before the deadline. The brief asks for common things to be submitted: plans, sections, facades, site plan and renderings, digital only. However, for a residential backyard landscape design of only 100 m2, with a prize amount of 1000$ and a brief asking for complete package suitable to send out for bids, there are only 7 registered designers, 6 weeks before the deadline.
The biggest crowd who submitted design projects was of 80 users, competing for the redevelopment of a school district in the US. Don't know the cash prize, but it's quite impressive for a start-up.
The business model (patent pending btw, which is peculiar) seems to be:
networking tax for 3rd party contractors + transaction fee (?%) for the prizes.
So far, no advertising (thumbs up!).
So, to sum up:
PROs
Do not offend the architecture industry by cloning the specs crowdsourcing business model. Do not be labeled as exploitation (see the comments). Or at least not if you don't get the big bucks.
It's a small US start-up organizing competitions for small-to-middle scale residential, refurbishing and interior design architecture projects. The parties involved are a crowd of international designers (not restricted to professionals), a client who initiates a competition (based on the platform's recommendations, he sets a prize amount and provides a brief complete with CAD drawings and photos), the hosting platform and a cloud of contractors eager to force their way in very early (probably with a networking subscription or fee). There is no jury, so the client picks the winners: 1st gets 60% of the prize amount, 2nd gets 30% and the 3rd gets 10%. As far as I've read the FAQ's, both registration in a competition and initiating a competition are free. The prize amount is still somehow guaranteed and the general principle is that it should be (but not compulsory) around 2% of the construction cost. So far the designers and the clients are anonymous and the briefs doesn't provide an address. Communication between the clients and the designers is exclusively through the competition platform. That probably because the 3rd party (the contractors) will have to pay for these contact details. However, not visiting the building site or the actual building in case of a refurbishment/extension is a major lack. It will deeply lower the quality of the designs and the chances for those to be implemented.
The system seems to work: for a small community library in the US, of around 1500 m2, with a prize amount of 1500 $, 84 designers from all over the world (Indonesia, Peru, Greece, Canada and so on) are registered 3 weeks before the deadline. The brief asks for common things to be submitted: plans, sections, facades, site plan and renderings, digital only. However, for a residential backyard landscape design of only 100 m2, with a prize amount of 1000$ and a brief asking for complete package suitable to send out for bids, there are only 7 registered designers, 6 weeks before the deadline.
The biggest crowd who submitted design projects was of 80 users, competing for the redevelopment of a school district in the US. Don't know the cash prize, but it's quite impressive for a start-up.
The business model (patent pending btw, which is peculiar) seems to be:
networking tax for 3rd party contractors + transaction fee (?%) for the prizes.
So far, no advertising (thumbs up!).
So, to sum up:
PROs
- Free registration for clients/designers (not yet freemium, but we'll see)
- Trustworthy (in general it seems not to be a scam, because they're providing the names and contact details for members of the team and of the board of advisors, all with an Ivy league sort of background - MIT, Harvard, etc.)
- Guaranteed prizes for the winners
- No annoying advertising / clean image of the webpage
- No real site visits are allowed. That's a major flow!
- Quite a poor overall design quality of the submissions (but the winners clearly differentiates from the others)
- No jury? No feedback at the end of the process? Just cash the prize and go? Hmm
- What about the copyrights? They become the exclusive property of the purveyor. Not so fair...
- When you ask for a complete project in the US, ready to be implemented and authorized by the local authorities, the winning designer could be a 2nd year student from Malaysia, with great ideas but with very poor actual knowledge of the construction process, details, etc
- No real exposure for the design results. Only the winning submissions are posted on Facebook.
- The cash prize is not regulated according to the complexity and difficulty of the design process. Of course, a powerful tagline of the site is 'all too often clients could not find an easy and affordable way to find competitive architectural design services', so let's offer a chance to those in need of great architecture but with no money to pay for it. But only one offending cash prize does a lot of damage to the competition platform, then to be perceived as a 99designs.com for architecture and interior design.
- Dwell.com is quite harsh: “The Worst Thing To Happen To Architecture Since The Internet Started”. Probably it's all because it encourages blind design without visiting the building site. Comming from Dwell, it's BAD.
- The prestigious UK publication The Architects Journal posted a probably harsh criticism too, but unfortunately the content is for subscribers only.
- Things Magazine is skeptical, tagging Arcbazar as "reducing architectural design to a form of bartered good"
- So did Chris from IDLab , in an extensive comment on his blog, about crowdsourcing architecture. It's all about low fees and a slavery inspired business model. It's even WORST, because it will trigger the anger of the whole industry (as in the case of the above mentioned 99designs vs. the design agencies)
- Same goes with FairFees4all's comments on this blog.
Do not offend the architecture industry by cloning the specs crowdsourcing business model. Do not be labeled as exploitation (see the comments). Or at least not if you don't get the big bucks.
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