Archinect - News

RIBA’s President-elect Chris Williamson pens defense of architectural competitions

2024-11-04T13:36:00-05:00

I find that competitions are stimulating, exciting and keep up the momentum of thinking and exploring. [...] I have often had difficulty convincing my Partners who are much less supportive of the competition process and much more prone to the disappointment of not winning. For me not winning is not taking part. Losing is learning. And I’ve learnt a lot.

Competitions are an essential part of professional practice and academia, dating to antiquity and counting even the Acropolis in Athens as one of their numerous contributions to at least Western culture and society. Williamson mentions his participation with the Norman Foster Foundation on the new Rebuild Kharkiv competition, saying it was a valuable learning opportunity. The post nonetheless garnered a considerable amount of backlash online—including a comment from popular UK architect Sarah Wigglesworth—who criticized their role in perpetuating a bad architectural culture and usury relationship with clients.

The 2021 Landezine International Landscape Award winners have been announced

2021-06-24T17:40:00-04:00

The winners of the 2021 Landezine International Landscape Award (LILA) have been announced.

The six-member jury, consisting of landscape architects and designers Marianne Levinsen, Martí Franch, Catherine Mosbach, Andrew van Egmond, Chloe Humphreys, and Zaš Brezar, selected winners out of 240 built projects and 400 products for the product award. In addition, editors of Landezine selected the office award out of 171 submissions, along with the honor award. In total, 13 awards and five special mentions were recognized.

LILA was established in 2016 by Zaš Brezar, the CEO of landscape architecture website, Landezine, and independent journalist, Robert Schäfer. The aim of the award is to recognize landscape architects and their captivating projects across the world.

International firm Snøhetta, in the Office Profile category, took home the 2021 LILA Honor Award, recognized for their MAX IV Laboratory Landscape Park and Time Square projects. As read on the competition’s website: “The ...

Winners of this year's 2019 Fairy Tales competition use the power of storytelling to address issues on immigration, sustainability, and the future

2019-04-08T13:16:00-04:00

As architects and designers creating narrative through the built environment is what helps create discussion for awareness and change. Since its inception in 2013, the annual Fairy Tales competition challenges architects and designers to drive design innovation through the power of storytelling. Today Blank Space announces the winners of the sixth annual "Fairy Tales" competition. With submissions from over 65 countries, the award-winning entries explore current events and the creative process through wonderfully crafted shot stories and artwork. This year three prize winners were selected as well as 12 honorable mentions.

The competition jury consisted of more than 20 leading architects, designers, and storytellers including Moshe Safdie, Tatiana Bilbao, Jurgen Mayer, Julia Koerner, among many other distinguished judges.

Francesca Giuliani, co-founder of Blank Space shared her thoughts on this year's competition winners, "This year's winners utilize the power of narrative to expl...

Winning airport design accused of plagiarizing Kengo Kuma's Wooden Bridge Museum

2018-08-27T14:09:00-04:00

Duangrit Bunnag, the renowned local architect who won the bid to design Suvarnabhumi airport's second terminal, has denied plagiarising the work of a Japanese architect. "I didn't copy anyone else's work. Those who follow my work will know that I created a similar image in my previous designs, such as for a hotel in Sri Lanka," Mr Duangrit told The Standard, a local online news portal.

Duangrit Bunnag's firm DBALP Consortium, along with Nikken Sekkei, EMS Consultants, MHPM, MSE and ARJ Consortium, were recently announced as winners of the Suvarnabhumi Airport Terminal 2 Project design contest. Focused on expanding the Thailand airport, the competition design sparked online accusations of plagiarizing Kengo Kuma's Wooden Bridge Museum in southern Japan.

DBALP Consortium's winning airport design:

Suvarnabhumi Terminal 2 competition entry by DBALP Consortium. Image: DBALP Consortium.

Kengo Kuma's Wooden Bridge Museum:

Kengo Kuma's Wooden Bridge Museum, located in southern Japan. Image: Takumi Ota.

Salon revisits how Maya Lin won Vietnam War Memorial competition by breaking its biggest rule

2017-10-02T14:12:00-04:00

The most important rule was that entries be non-political. They were to express no opinion whatsoever about the rightness or wrongness of the Vietnam War itself.

As the article points out, May Lin's design of a series of slabs were conceived by Lin as dominos falling—a reference to the "domino theory," prominent from the 50s to the 80s, that posited that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. With the names of those dead from the war etched on, the memorial's foundation "was a brilliantly devastating political commentary on the Vietnam War: that the 'kids' of Vietnam took a dizzying ride on a series of falling dominos to their collective death."

And the winner of this year's "worst new building" is...

2016-09-07T12:16:00-04:00

This years wooden spoon goes to a luxury block of flats in London’s Docklands. Lincoln Plaza, a residential development in London’s Docklands is the winner of the 2016 Carbuncle Cup. Designed by BUJ Architects for Galliard Homes, the development consists of two residential towers integrated with a hotel and a standalone drum shaped building set off to one side.

The luxury block of flats in London designed by BUJ Architects has beaten five other projects in the running, Saffron Square by Rolfe Judd, The Diamond by Twelve Architects, One Smithfield by RHWL, Poole Methodist Church by Intelligent Design Centre and 5 Broadgate by Make Architects. The judges described the scheme as "a hideous melange of materials, forms and colours... Lincoln Plaza is the type of project that gives high-rise housing a bad name". Four of the nominees featured facades composed of offset geometrical patterns, utterly confusing to the eye at odds with the openings on their facades. It seems that the once fashionable patchwork quilt approach to facade design has worn thin.

However, there is a certain amount of discomfort surrounding the Carbuncle Cup. With the position of architects and their authority in the construction industry being ever challenged, is it productive to have an award of shame singling out architects? (and not dodgy contractors or clients?). Or is t...

Architects tell all in a global survey about the future of design competitions

2015-04-23T15:49:00-04:00

Architectural design competitions have long been a crucial element in the field -- from the student level to starchitect status -- that can provide an international platform for drawing attention to pressing issues and new ideas in the world around us. Nonetheless, the typical structure of the competition is also in great need of its very own discussion. The Architectural Record and the Van Alen Institute conducted a global Competition Survey that asked architects and designers worldwide about what drives them to participate in competitions, what they like and dislike about the process, and suggestions for how to improve and rethink its format for the future.

Respondents fervently shared their input and personal experiences in the survey, which amassed a total of 1,414 responses from 65 countries. The Architectural Record and Van Alen published the results in three documents:

A compilation of raw data from the online survey platform
Ten Propositions that highlight the main factors that...