Chapter 5 - Architecture Competitions
Architectural Competitions
Sometimes, after we find ourselves working in the professional field for sometime we can find that we lose some sense of design. We spend most of our academic careers designing wild buildings that could never stand and create these beautiful and colorful graphic design pieces to showcase our projects. For most of us we thought this profession would hold more of a design presence when we got to the real world but that wasn’t always the case. As young professionals there are many things that we can do to keep those creative juices flowing and entering competitions can be one of those outlets.
At these early stages in our careers it’s hard to get recognition and keep up the development of our design skills. We were challenged in school with difficult prompts and programs to encourage us to think outside the box and explore new ideas. Majority of us now stare at our computers and work through code and construction documents. Design isn’t at the top of the priority list for the time being. Not only are competitions a good tool for architects who are early in their careers, but many famous architects and buildings have stemmed from competitions. For example, the Sydney Opera House and the Guggenheim, two of the world's most famous buildings, are products of architectural competitions. SANAA, Foster + Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects, MVRDV, BIG, and MAD Architects, all regular participants as well, and this is just to name a few. For an established firm like these, architecture competitions allow for them to secure high-profile projects. When searching for new potential projects, clients may not know who they want to design their building. Firms will then submit their designs to a client and compete against other firms in order to secure that project. Winning projects like these allows for these firms to raise their profiles and attract new clients. Again, in these cases these projects can lead to business growth and public recognition. While all of these firms are well known, you don’t have to be well established in order to try your hand at winning a competition.
Competitions can identify talented, up-and-coming architects who might not have had the opportunity to showcase their work otherwise. This opens doors for new perspectives and disrupts the status quo in the architectural world. However, you don’t need to jump into every architecture competition that comes across your computer. Find something that aligns with your interests. Read through the prompts and the timelines and make sure this is also something that aligns with your schedule. Different competitions have different scales, timelines, prizes and requirements. If you’re seriously considering entering one here are a few ways architecture competitions can benefit you. Competitions let you create fresh, innovative designs outside the constraints of everyday work. These designs can beef up your portfolio, as well as showcase your skills and creativity to potential employers or clients. Not every project in your portfolio needs to be professional or academic. Jury feedback on your submissions is invaluable. Gaining insights from established professionals helps you identify strengths and weaknesses, hone your design process, and learn from the best. Keep in mind, people want to see you succeed. Don’t be afraid to ask a peer or an employer (outside of work hours) to give you design advice or feedback before you submit. Not all feedback may be good feedback but perhaps someone’s feedback can spark a new idea or perspective. This is the time to get exposure. If you’re looking to break through in the architecture world or eventually open your own firm, competitions are a great way to gain exposure. Many competitions are publicized online and in industry publications. Even if you don't win, getting your work seen by potential clients, collaborators, and future employers can open doors. Due to the anonymity that many of the competitions uphold when submitting, this allows you to win and gain recognition based on personal merit rather than a firm’s reputation. Some of you may be thinking, how do you leverage competitions for recognition? Like I mentioned earlier, find your fit. Research the past winners and note what made them succeed and stand out from the rest and perhaps what the jury prefers. Believe me when I say quality over quantity. I have made this mistake myself many times and when looking back I always end up regretting it. It’s better to turn in a well polished piece of work for a few targeted competitions rather than entering any competition just for the sake of entering a competition. Focus on refining that design and presentation. Network like crazy; use competitions as a springboard to connect with other architects, jurors, and potential clients. It all stems back to social media. One of, if not the most used platform for our generation. Share and post your drawings and projects to your social media, Linkedin, or any other platforms that showcases your work. You may not have won that competition but someone might still admire it. And lastly, persistence pays off. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t win a competition. There’s always the next. Keep entering competitions and refine your work based on feedback, celebrate those small victories.
Now, after we went through all the benefits competitions have to offer, there are a few things people may not always disclose. For starters, competitions are expensive. Not every competition has an entry fee but I would say more often than not, they do. These fees can range anywhere from free, to thousands of dollars. I can only speak for myself but entering multiple competitions isn’t always feasible. While some competitions do offer cash prizes, this typically means there will be more participants, ultimately making it more difficult to win. This isn’t to turn anyone off from entering, because I do believe the pros outweigh the cons, it’s just something to consider if you’re a broke twenty-some year old like myself. While you don’t have to enter a competition with a firm or a group of people, there’s almost always an option to enter with 1-4 other teammates. If you have trouble working in groups or are looking to gain more experience in team settings, it may benefit you to grab a couple of friends and enter together. This can cut down costs as well as work load. This wouldn’t be A Simple Architect blog post if I wasn’t honest. Be mindful of your partners. If you’ve worked with them before and you know their work style, great, all the more reason to work together. However, if you don’t it may not exactly work in your favor. But you can always learn from an experience! You can experience a role as if you’re a project manager and manage project timelines, design work and help keep your team on track to meet the deadline of the competition. Any experience counts as good experience. Take these lessons as learning tools.
Architectural competitions are not without their challenges. Complexities can arise during the evaluation process, and ensuring a fair competition is crucial. However, the potential rewards far outweigh the obstacles. By fostering groundbreaking designs, unearthing new talent, and sparking public engagement, architectural competitions are a powerful tool for shaping the future of our built environment. So next time you marvel at a daring new building, remember - it might just be the product of a fierce design competition, a testament to the power of creative collisions and the pursuit of architectural excellence.
See below of a few of the architectural competitions I would recommend for the 2024 calendar year.
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