I've been asked to put together design award submissions for two houses my firm did, including one I did from conceptual sketches through CA. The firm made its name on the quality of their custom home designs years ago, but we don't do many houses anymore. In the past three years, the firm has done 6 houses, I've done 5 of them. I'm very proud of the design, construction, and a little local publicity, but I've come to realize that it is not worthy of publication in any magazine with a national distribution. We've sent it for AIA awards without success. Residential Architect design awards. Now Architecture's Home of the Year. The requirements for submission have been slightly different for each, and I'm getting tired of tramping out all the same photos, plans, details - not to mention modifying the written description a little bit each time. I take my writing about projects seriously, and I've seen some butchered text in the last couple of days from others.
Have any of you gone through this? Or maybe you're doing it right now? Can I tell the boss I don't think it's worth pursuing publication? Our commercial work has received much more acclaim in recent years, but I haven't been asked to write about any of them.
AIA award submissions vary from chapter to chapter and state to state,but:
Principals are often well aware that projects are probably not award-worthy and choose to submit anyway. Some reasons:
1. In AIA chapters that display everything (not just the winners) in an exhibit or traveling show this is one of the best sources of marketing/publicity you could get. Residential clients in particular are likely to be directed to these exhibits by the AIA and will take down names and contact architects as a result. Even if your local chapter displays only the binders in their office rather than full boards people will still look at them.
2. These entries can be good recruiting material as well. Especially if your firm doesn't publish much, this is a good venue for young architects and interns to see your work. Even if, in your opinion, the work is not great at least some people become aware of your existence.
3. Referrals come from all sorts of weird places. We got a referral for a project from someone who worked at a publication to which we submitted a project and had never heard from again. We never got published there, but sending the stuff helped anyway.
4. Sometimes it's the clients driving the idea of publishing/submitting. If the client has gotten the idea into his head that his house should be in these competitions then you won't get future referrals from him if you don't submit it. Not to say that the firm should allow itself to be pressured if it for some reason doesn't want to submit it - but there isn't a lot of harm in it.
It's possible and common in some AIA award competitions to enter the same project several years in a row (this depends again on the chapter and state - they're strangely not all using the same rules.) Each year has different judges, so losing once or twice doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Certainly many of us have been through this. Yes, the constant tweaking of the submission rules each year can be kind of annoying - but generally by now you should have plenty of photos and files ready that you can rework without too much ado.
I would definately never tell an employer that I didn't think the work was worth publishing/submitting.
Ormolu is right, Juries for these award programs change from year to year, so there is the chance that one jury will see something the others didn't. The firm I used to work for submitted the same project 3 years in a row: lost the first 2, won the last one. Sometimes the 3rd time can be a charm. As such, I'd urge you to consider who is on the jury moreso than simply that it's the same awards program. Think of the jury as a client -- would you present the same thing to a hip NY fashion designer as you would to a suburbanite from Topeka? Try to keep a core of information constant, but then vary other bits (detail shots, rendering/photo composites, early sketches) based on the jury. Good luck.
design award submissions
I've been asked to put together design award submissions for two houses my firm did, including one I did from conceptual sketches through CA. The firm made its name on the quality of their custom home designs years ago, but we don't do many houses anymore. In the past three years, the firm has done 6 houses, I've done 5 of them. I'm very proud of the design, construction, and a little local publicity, but I've come to realize that it is not worthy of publication in any magazine with a national distribution. We've sent it for AIA awards without success. Residential Architect design awards. Now Architecture's Home of the Year. The requirements for submission have been slightly different for each, and I'm getting tired of tramping out all the same photos, plans, details - not to mention modifying the written description a little bit each time. I take my writing about projects seriously, and I've seen some butchered text in the last couple of days from others.
Have any of you gone through this? Or maybe you're doing it right now? Can I tell the boss I don't think it's worth pursuing publication? Our commercial work has received much more acclaim in recent years, but I haven't been asked to write about any of them.
AIA award submissions vary from chapter to chapter and state to state,but:
Principals are often well aware that projects are probably not award-worthy and choose to submit anyway. Some reasons:
1. In AIA chapters that display everything (not just the winners) in an exhibit or traveling show this is one of the best sources of marketing/publicity you could get. Residential clients in particular are likely to be directed to these exhibits by the AIA and will take down names and contact architects as a result. Even if your local chapter displays only the binders in their office rather than full boards people will still look at them.
2. These entries can be good recruiting material as well. Especially if your firm doesn't publish much, this is a good venue for young architects and interns to see your work. Even if, in your opinion, the work is not great at least some people become aware of your existence.
3. Referrals come from all sorts of weird places. We got a referral for a project from someone who worked at a publication to which we submitted a project and had never heard from again. We never got published there, but sending the stuff helped anyway.
4. Sometimes it's the clients driving the idea of publishing/submitting. If the client has gotten the idea into his head that his house should be in these competitions then you won't get future referrals from him if you don't submit it. Not to say that the firm should allow itself to be pressured if it for some reason doesn't want to submit it - but there isn't a lot of harm in it.
It's possible and common in some AIA award competitions to enter the same project several years in a row (this depends again on the chapter and state - they're strangely not all using the same rules.) Each year has different judges, so losing once or twice doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Certainly many of us have been through this. Yes, the constant tweaking of the submission rules each year can be kind of annoying - but generally by now you should have plenty of photos and files ready that you can rework without too much ado.
I would definately never tell an employer that I didn't think the work was worth publishing/submitting.
Ormolu is right, Juries for these award programs change from year to year, so there is the chance that one jury will see something the others didn't. The firm I used to work for submitted the same project 3 years in a row: lost the first 2, won the last one. Sometimes the 3rd time can be a charm. As such, I'd urge you to consider who is on the jury moreso than simply that it's the same awards program. Think of the jury as a client -- would you present the same thing to a hip NY fashion designer as you would to a suburbanite from Topeka? Try to keep a core of information constant, but then vary other bits (detail shots, rendering/photo composites, early sketches) based on the jury. Good luck.
fair enough. thanks.
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