Does anybody still care about the P/A Awards? As Architecture magazine gets worse and worse the awards loses it's credibility. Has it completely lost it yet?
we had a brief discussion about this when the last P/A awards came out, and I think the general consensus was the overall crapiness of Architecture magazine has all but killed any validity the P/A awards used to have. It's a shame really. I used to be really excited to see how cool the projects were that got awards, but it's so hard to even thumb through architecture magazine anymore, I doubt I'll even bother looking this year...
entries for the award are due on friday. here at the studio we have a few projects that are eligible for the award but can't decide wheather of not it is worth it to spend half a day preparing an entry. to add insult to injury when you enter the award you have to buy a one year subscription to the award. th eonly reason that the studio still gets that magazine is because we apply for the award every few years or so.
And the last couple years that I was still getting the magazine I noticed it was basically the same group of people winning, then judging, then winning again.... They didn't seem to care about giving any apearance of impartiality.
well thanks for the input everyone. we recieved the new issue of architecture magazine today and a quick 10 second flip through it confirmed that we no longer have any interest in the p/a award. a progressive archinect award sounds like it could be good though.
And aren't the PA awards for real projects that are getting built. I've only ever seen 1 office da PA project get built. Do they make up projects? Seriously, look at their house projects - are any of them reasonably structural, buildable or cost feasible. Who are these phantom clients that come to them and say: "build me a little 1 bedroom house, make it as expensive and fussy as possible - money's no object, times no object - we just wasnt to see lots of pretty pencil drawings...."
j-turn..
i don't think it's just office da...the gsd in particular
seems to dominate the p/a awards..take a look at
past issues and you'll see that there's quite a bit
of inbreeding there...of course it doesn't hurt that
gehry, morphosis, kennedy/violich, preston scott cohen
(i think), office da, machado silvetti etc have some sort
of connection to the gsd..but that's just off the top of my head...
looking through one year it was more than a bit suspicious
office da does however have quite a few built projects...
the gatehouse in china is actually really nice...they also
have a bunch of interiors built in the boston area...i don't
know if any of the houses have been built though...since
they are profs at the gsd they have a very cheap workforce
available to them to allow them to do their explorations,
models, drawings etc...and make very attractive projects
without worrying about whether or not they get built...
as far as structural feasibility...which project are you speaking
of...seems to me most of their projects can easily be built..
corbelling and such...just wondering
It is dissapointing the way the whole thing is handled. The submission that my firm is proposing will be begin construction soon. The design is not something you would drop your jaw for, but it is feasible. With a tight budget, only solid design choices were made. Good intentions, but being the "small guys", how likely is it? Only big names get the awards.
I am definitely not going to submit for this award anymore. The magazine is awful and the price of submitting is ridiculous. Every year I look at who the judges are and then find about one degree of separation between those judges and the people selected for awards. There is just such an egregis disregard for any sense of fair play that it disgusts me. Sure, it's possible that people who do good work would be professionally and personally acquainted with one another, however the projects that tend to win are not necessarily that good.
The GSD thing is the most obvious abuse of what used to be an interesting award series. That these people would actual feel proud of having "won" an award that was given by someone who all ready knew the project, and it's authors, in advance seems like the hallmark of a very weak character to me. And if this mode of operation is endemic to an entire institution- well, I'd say it's time for that little inbred mentality to get flushed.
My favorite year was when they included Hani Rashid's statements from the jury discussion: pure gold. Him saying things like: "I can't vote for this project because he is my friend, and it's not even that good, but I really think we have to give him, I mean this project, an award"! Well there you go...the good news, I suppose, is that all these things really do is help faculty to get tenure...when it comes to "raising the discourse" of contemporary practice- they do virtually nothing! (given that the work of Morphosis or D+S types will be broadly published anyways- why do we need this sham competition?).
REAL PROJECTS ONLY All entries must have been commissioned for compensation by clients with the intention and the authority
to carry out the submitted proposal. A project entered in a design competition is eligible if it is the one proposal the competition’s
sponsor intends to build.
so the project has to be commissioned by a client, which as I'm sure you all know, has very little guarantee of getting built.
on another note, the submission form looks awful this year. Who designed that?
Re. office dA - recently they've been getting a couple projects built - but they won a string of awards in the late 90's for some totally suspect houses and urban design projects. Look at all of those house projects - brick walls dissolving into a curtain shape (look closely at the geometry - totally fudged), corrugated metal bending in the wrong direction ... etc. And not one of them got built.
office dA strikes me as the most offensive. Morph, Gehry, KVA, Vincent James ... all win for projects that get built or at least attempt at realism. Office dA only win because they make pretty pencil drawings.
Their interior projects aren't very effective. It’s usually some cool, fussy little things strewn about in a space that doesn't ever coalesce around a comprehensive idea or experience.
architecture magazine must earn quite some money from the awards.
Each entry is at least $150 (getting higher each year) and they usually received 500 entries each year and it add up to $75,000. say they pay $2,000 to each juries.. they still earn $65,000.
All the images are provided by the winners for free and architecture magazine preserve the right for publication later.
the best thing is that architecture magazine pay nothing to the winner.
moreover, the sale of PA awards issue is usually higher than other issues.
what's better than doing nothing and earning big $$$$?
on the other hand, the jurors usually picked the projects from their friends, their colleauges and their ex-bosses who would later do the same thing to the jurors as well in other occasions. that's why some very unapplealing projects still win.
It only happens in architecture discipline....
thanks for our fellow enthusiatic architects who still believe competition is fair... indeed... only 1 out of 12 winners doesn't have connection.
why working so hard and spending so much to the thing that won't happen?
let's save some money for x'mas gift :)
i've seen it - yeah. (there's another example of the GSD mafia at work - yay toshiko!)
i do think their pencil drawings are quite beautiful though, that is undeniable.
But- i'm specifically refering to a series of three houses that won PA awards, that weren't built, but represented with their pencil renderings that look very detailed, but that upon closer inspection are highly dubious. To me - those projects seem to be against the sprit of the PA awards.
Ultimately, the great thing about the PA awards SHOULD be that they celebrate work that manages to be creative, innovative, exciting in the face of all the challenges and compromises inherent in the architecture process. I don't know how well the awards are living up to that ideal, and I think that is certainly one of the frustrations all the posters in this discussion share.
Aug 29, 05 7:57 am ·
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Does anybody still care about the P/A Awards?
Does anybody still care about the P/A Awards? As Architecture magazine gets worse and worse the awards loses it's credibility. Has it completely lost it yet?
we had a brief discussion about this when the last P/A awards came out, and I think the general consensus was the overall crapiness of Architecture magazine has all but killed any validity the P/A awards used to have. It's a shame really. I used to be really excited to see how cool the projects were that got awards, but it's so hard to even thumb through architecture magazine anymore, I doubt I'll even bother looking this year...
entries for the award are due on friday. here at the studio we have a few projects that are eligible for the award but can't decide wheather of not it is worth it to spend half a day preparing an entry. to add insult to injury when you enter the award you have to buy a one year subscription to the award. th eonly reason that the studio still gets that magazine is because we apply for the award every few years or so.
And the last couple years that I was still getting the magazine I noticed it was basically the same group of people winning, then judging, then winning again.... They didn't seem to care about giving any apearance of impartiality.
Why don't we jut bring back 'Progressive Architecture', the magazine.
NO! and especially not when Mayne and renfro scofidio diller win all the time.
make a progressive archinect award?
prizes made by per.
well thanks for the input everyone. we recieved the new issue of architecture magazine today and a quick 10 second flip through it confirmed that we no longer have any interest in the p/a award. a progressive archinect award sounds like it could be good though.
87. Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened.
its funny, I spent the last two weeks preparing a package for Friday. I doubt it'll win, but the firm still has some hope.
It's just strange that Office dA win every year.
And aren't the PA awards for real projects that are getting built. I've only ever seen 1 office da PA project get built. Do they make up projects? Seriously, look at their house projects - are any of them reasonably structural, buildable or cost feasible. Who are these phantom clients that come to them and say: "build me a little 1 bedroom house, make it as expensive and fussy as possible - money's no object, times no object - we just wasnt to see lots of pretty pencil drawings...."
j-turn..
i don't think it's just office da...the gsd in particular
seems to dominate the p/a awards..take a look at
past issues and you'll see that there's quite a bit
of inbreeding there...of course it doesn't hurt that
gehry, morphosis, kennedy/violich, preston scott cohen
(i think), office da, machado silvetti etc have some sort
of connection to the gsd..but that's just off the top of my head...
looking through one year it was more than a bit suspicious
office da does however have quite a few built projects...
the gatehouse in china is actually really nice...they also
have a bunch of interiors built in the boston area...i don't
know if any of the houses have been built though...since
they are profs at the gsd they have a very cheap workforce
available to them to allow them to do their explorations,
models, drawings etc...and make very attractive projects
without worrying about whether or not they get built...
as far as structural feasibility...which project are you speaking
of...seems to me most of their projects can easily be built..
corbelling and such...just wondering
o.da won for the intergen. learning center this yr.
it was supposed to be built.
ciyt of chicago bailed out.
not their fault...
It is dissapointing the way the whole thing is handled. The submission that my firm is proposing will be begin construction soon. The design is not something you would drop your jaw for, but it is feasible. With a tight budget, only solid design choices were made. Good intentions, but being the "small guys", how likely is it? Only big names get the awards.
mostly, but not ONLY, big names get the awards
I am definitely not going to submit for this award anymore. The magazine is awful and the price of submitting is ridiculous. Every year I look at who the judges are and then find about one degree of separation between those judges and the people selected for awards. There is just such an egregis disregard for any sense of fair play that it disgusts me. Sure, it's possible that people who do good work would be professionally and personally acquainted with one another, however the projects that tend to win are not necessarily that good.
The GSD thing is the most obvious abuse of what used to be an interesting award series. That these people would actual feel proud of having "won" an award that was given by someone who all ready knew the project, and it's authors, in advance seems like the hallmark of a very weak character to me. And if this mode of operation is endemic to an entire institution- well, I'd say it's time for that little inbred mentality to get flushed.
My favorite year was when they included Hani Rashid's statements from the jury discussion: pure gold. Him saying things like: "I can't vote for this project because he is my friend, and it's not even that good, but I really think we have to give him, I mean this project, an award"! Well there you go...the good news, I suppose, is that all these things really do is help faculty to get tenure...when it comes to "raising the discourse" of contemporary practice- they do virtually nothing! (given that the work of Morphosis or D+S types will be broadly published anyways- why do we need this sham competition?).
From the entry form...
REAL PROJECTS ONLY All entries must have been commissioned for compensation by clients with the intention and the authority
to carry out the submitted proposal. A project entered in a design competition is eligible if it is the one proposal the competition’s
sponsor intends to build.
so the project has to be commissioned by a client, which as I'm sure you all know, has very little guarantee of getting built.
on another note, the submission form looks awful this year. Who designed that?
whoa. that IS especially nasty...
Re. office dA - recently they've been getting a couple projects built - but they won a string of awards in the late 90's for some totally suspect houses and urban design projects. Look at all of those house projects - brick walls dissolving into a curtain shape (look closely at the geometry - totally fudged), corrugated metal bending in the wrong direction ... etc. And not one of them got built.
office dA strikes me as the most offensive. Morph, Gehry, KVA, Vincent James ... all win for projects that get built or at least attempt at realism. Office dA only win because they make pretty pencil drawings.
Their interior projects aren't very effective. It’s usually some cool, fussy little things strewn about in a space that doesn't ever coalesce around a comprehensive idea or experience.
architecture magazine must earn quite some money from the awards.
Each entry is at least $150 (getting higher each year) and they usually received 500 entries each year and it add up to $75,000. say they pay $2,000 to each juries.. they still earn $65,000.
All the images are provided by the winners for free and architecture magazine preserve the right for publication later.
the best thing is that architecture magazine pay nothing to the winner.
moreover, the sale of PA awards issue is usually higher than other issues.
what's better than doing nothing and earning big $$$$?
on the other hand, the jurors usually picked the projects from their friends, their colleauges and their ex-bosses who would later do the same thing to the jurors as well in other occasions. that's why some very unapplealing projects still win.
It only happens in architecture discipline....
thanks for our fellow enthusiatic architects who still believe competition is fair... indeed... only 1 out of 12 winners doesn't have connection.
why working so hard and spending so much to the thing that won't happen?
let's save some money for x'mas gift :)
j-turn:
you're really set on this 'office da wins only because of pencil drawings' thing huh...
and if you want to see a built office da house that badly then go pick up a copy of 10_x_10_2 and check out the house in there.
i've seen it - yeah. (there's another example of the GSD mafia at work - yay toshiko!)
i do think their pencil drawings are quite beautiful though, that is undeniable.
But- i'm specifically refering to a series of three houses that won PA awards, that weren't built, but represented with their pencil renderings that look very detailed, but that upon closer inspection are highly dubious. To me - those projects seem to be against the sprit of the PA awards.
Ultimately, the great thing about the PA awards SHOULD be that they celebrate work that manages to be creative, innovative, exciting in the face of all the challenges and compromises inherent in the architecture process. I don't know how well the awards are living up to that ideal, and I think that is certainly one of the frustrations all the posters in this discussion share.
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