Architecture competitions and charettes are a great way to test the quality and speed at which the designer can think, react, and execute their response for any given program.  Additionally, the strict deadlines encourage the designer to become comfortable experimenting on the fly without getting too lost in his/her own ideas.  A successful entry is cohesively represented and explicitly focused, outlining one or two distinct concepts rather than attempting to address every possible issue that may arise.  One potential benefit of competing in these exercises is the opportunity to have the work built if selected as a winner, which was the case for a competition calling for the design of a small-scale folly to be sited at the center of campus.  The concept was simple.  The project was to be an 8’ tall hollow cube constructed as six individual floating panels similar to an exploded axonometric drawing.  At night the shell’s empty interior was to glow in such a way that light would flood the seams, masking any necessary joints thus accentuating the concept of a free-floating geometry.  Unfortunately, plans for a neon lighting system embedded within panels had to be cancelled due to available resources, however the learning experience gained during the design development and construction phases outweighed this missing attribute.  In contrast, such entries as Temple Ruin and Balloonscape are overnight collaborations that insert humor into an, at times, overly pensive practice.  From color choice to font selection to page layout, each move directly influences the jury’s perception of the work and inevitably determines the competition’s result.