Architectural Competitions in Finland - Case Study Example

s: Dear Hi! Please my comments as given below and make appropriate changes in your paper. I have completed editing the paper in full. 1. I have followed English (UK) as per your assignment instructions e.g. organize changed to organise etc. 2. Apparantly, the section that you referred to me is only a part of your full thesis. Hence, I have not changed any of your headings / sub-headings in their font size or style or numbering system. 3. It is the normal practice to use Times New Roman font of size 12, with double spacing for lines. You chose Arial bold / Arial of font sizes 14/12 for headings and Times New Roman 12 for the text. I have followed your styles. 4. It is the normal practice to left justify the text while you chose justified on both sides. I have followed your choice. 5. Most importantly, you have followed giving superscript numbers like i, ii, iii etc. in your text, identifying the sources. In this practice, you are supposed to identify the sources as footnotes in each page whereever such references are given, after you strike a line (after the text), at the bottom of the page. This footnote should read like this (for example): ( last part of the text in a particular page) i. Ronald E. Pepin, Literature of Satire in the Twelfth Century (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988) 78. ii. etc. Alternatively, you can include an Endnotes page, at the end of your paper and give the full information as in above example, in the serial order of the superscript numericals. This is as per MLA style of referencing. 6. References Page: Please include the References page at the end of your full paper. The citations in this page must be on alphabetical order (author name) and not according to the superscript numerical order. In fact, there should not be any numbering of these citations. Just as shown in the footnote example give in 5 above, full particulars of author, and his work must be given. I am sure that you are aware of most of these requirements. Regards, Addala (Writer 3144) 1.1 Architectural competitions in Finland Finland held its earliest architectural competition with a ‘built result’ in 1876 for the building of the Bank of Finland. German architect Ludwig Bohnstedt won this international competition. In the following year too, Bohnstedt in association with Sigismund Ringler took the first prize in the competition for the Surgical Hospital of Helsinki. The commission for designing the Lutheran Johannes Church went to the Swedish architect A. E. Melander. In view of these and similar other events, there was a fear that the professional competency of Finnish architects was not on a compatible leveli, and the idea of competitions was a worry to TFiF (Tekniska Föreningen i Finland) in its early years. However such worries proved to be misplaced and the Finnish architects began to experience success in competitions e.g., the urban planning of Töölö district of Helsinki in 1899 and for the city of Turku in 1906, when urban planning was still not being taught at the Polytechnic Instituteii. Finland gained identity as a country with its own style of architecture well before its independence in 1917. 1.1.1 Architects organise themselves TFiF was founded in 1880 jointly by engineers and architects and in the initial years, the forum was actively discussing architectural competitions and foreign successes in those competitions. By 1892, the architects decided to have their own Chapter under TFiF and founded Arkitektklubben (Architects’ Club) with 39 members.iii At the time when TFiF was founded, no women architects had yet graduated from the Polytechnic Institute. By the time the Architects Club was founded, they were already three.iv However, an architects diploma was not a prerequisite for membership; talent and experience was enough.v From the beginning, Architects Club engaged itself in pursuing issues of architecture and of the profession of architects. Its intense discussions in this forum about competitions led to the drafting of the first Finnish rules for architectural competitions in 1893, only a year after the Club was formed. These rules followed the example of the Swedish ones, and defined the rules for both open competition and competition by invitation. The rules made competition open to both architects and non-architects, and stipulated that majority of the jury had to be professionals in the field of building architecture. Conceived in the 1890s, these principles proved enduring. Apart from discussing professional matters, the Club’s activities involved nominating architects as juries and to work out competition briefs. Club meetings discussed the content of the briefs, the rationality of their goals and the composition of juries. The Club was publishing invitations to competitions and results in periodicals like Teknikern (The Technician) and Kotitaide (Domestic Art). In 1903, it started its own periodical Arkitekten (later Arkkitehti-Arkitekten; today Ark). The Art Committee of the Club had the responsibility to arrange and participate in the competitions.vi Architects Club formally separated from TFiF in 1919 and formed as an independent association, Suomen Arkkitehtiliitto - Finlands Arkitektforbund (SAFA; The Finnish Association of Architects). Its important objectives were to promote the profession of architecture and defend interests of its members. The newly formed association started shouldering the responsibility for all activities of competitions.vii 1.2 Variety of architectural competitions From 1947 onwards, the Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA) had a separate Competition Board and in 1963, the post of a competition secretary was created at the SAFA office. The Nordic practice of competition secretaries is exceptional in the international perspective. In most other countries, competition affairs are handled through local bodies of voluntaries and this has resulted in non-uniform competition procedures even at the national scale. viii An architectural competition always bears the stamp of its organisers, who plan the programmes and nominate majority jurors. SAFA has been maintaining the principle that its Competition Board closely scrutinises the programmes and gives the organisers, the best possible results with an optimal efforts from the competitors. 1.2.1 Competition rules SAFA has been revising its rules for architectural competitions from time to time, taking into account the emerging trends in the profession’s operating environment. At times there has been a need for more detailed description of the phases or the parties of a competition; at other times it was for procedural changes, or for a redefinition of the responsibilities of the different parties during the competition, etc. In recent decades, the Finnish Association of Building Owners and Construction Clients (RAKLI), which is a major interest group organising competitions is approving the revisions to rules for architectural competitions. The new Guidelines for Planning and Design Competitions in the Construction Sector are based on the EU directives on public procurement and are the most comprehensive regulatory framework for design and planning competitions in Finland.ix These guidelines promote planning and organising of competitions for architecture, landscape architecture, and engineering skills and help to assist competition organisers in writing the competition programme in such a way as to ensure equal and non-discriminatory treatment of the participants, and to ensure that the entries are judged in a professional manner. In addition to the traditional categories of open competitions and competitions by invitation, there are now extensive and restricted design/planning competitions. This division is based on the amount of time, work and documentation that a competition requires. Pure price competitions have become commonplace in public procurement x and in order to check this trend, restricted design competitions are being held for selecting a designer in a regular construction project. Competitions promote innovative ideas for creative architecture and engineering, cost-efficient planning and design, and help to create a good built-environment. They help in promoting public debate on architectural issues, appreciation of creative design and planning aspects, and generate positive publicity for the construction industry. Today, the Finnish procedures of architectural competitions can claim a history of nearly 130 years of continuous development. These procedures have steered the development of the institution of architectural competitions, and are an example of best international practice in the field. 1.2.2 The shape and characteristics of architectural competitions Architectural competitions can be either open or by invitation and are generally arranged in one or two stages. Finnish open competitions are usually open to planners/designers from a EU country or a country covered by EU legislation on procurement. The participants must have the right to practice the profession of architecture in their own country. For many new aspirants, the openness of the general architectural competitions has offered a route to commissions. An invitational competition is only for those specifically invited. When arranging competitions by invitation, public authorities must follow current legislation in selecting the participants. In competitions that are subject to the EU directives on public procurement or which exceed a national threshold value, the competitors are to be selected through either national or EU-level procedure of registration. An architectural competition can be for planning or design, or it can be a competition for ideas and these two types serve different purposes. The aim of a design/planning competition is to find a solution to form the basis for further planning/design and to select a planner/designer. A design/planning competition is utilised when the intention is to implement a project on the basis of the competition programme. A competition for ideas on the other hand, is to generate alternative suggestions in order to find an acceptable solution for a project and to base further planning/design and future decisions. Normally the character of a competition is mentioned in its name.xi 1.2.3 Competition metamorphosis Highlighting the emerging role of an architect in developing content for tender documents, new ways of implementing construction projects and competition procedures too have been introduced. For example, they include a variety of design & build competitions and site-allocation competitions.xii These competitions are usually bids for tenders, inviting construction firms or consultants to participate with their bids. Architectural design proposed by a bidder is one of the issues evaluated while selecting his offer. The bidders response in these competitions varies according to the type. For instance, in a site allocation competition with a set price, the bid documents include the architectural design features only prominently whereas in a design & build competition the importance of the design varies depending on the competition’s judgment criteria. The determining factors can be the quality of the architectural design (a quality competition, in which the price of implementation has been preset), the bid price (price competition) or a combination of both. In addition to design and implementation competitions, construction clients have utilised competition formats with elements of design, implementation, maintenance, financing, and ownership. This type of competitions may spread if municipalities decide to transition from property ownership to procurement of comprehensive services, on build-own-operate or build-operate-transfer basis. This changing character of competitive tendering demands that the bidders have multidisciplinary human resources and talents. Cities are resorting to site-allocation competitions to ensure desired quality for new housing on their land. Usually construction firms register with the competition and engage architects to draft a design according to the competition brief. This type of a competition is judged based either on the site price and the design jointly, or merely on the quality of the plans. Many cities organise fixed price site-allocation competitions just as in the competitions for housing design. Each site has a predetermined price and is allocated to the bidder who accepts that price and presents the best architectural design.xiii In 2001, the SAFA accepted the view that its competition rules primarily apply only to the design and planning competitions in which the reward is equal for all competitors apart from not covering the design-and-build competitions or the site allocation competitions. Feedback from participants and organisers confirmed that by having rules of procedure that have been jointly adopted by the construction sector, other forms of competition with elements of architectural design too would develop, thus helping the growth of the profession.xiv 1.3 Architectural competition in numbers Over the past 130 years, almost two thousand architectural competitions of all types have been held in Finland. Slightly less than a third of them have been open competitions. The annual average is four or five open competitions. However, the numbers have fluctuated greatly, with just about one every year in the beginning and rising to three to six a year of late. xv xvi In the Museum of Finnish Architecture archives, architectural competitions are classified into nine categories. Within each category there are up to ten sub-classes. The proportional shares of recorded competitions in the main categories are shown in Table 1. The relative shares are only indicative, because some competitions have been classified into more than one category, a typical example being a competition embracing the planning of a residential area and the design of dwelling units. A look at the relative distribution of the thematic domains indicates that the public sector (municipalities) is the major organiser of architectural competitions. Almost half of all competitions deal with either areas or buildings for education and culture. Only a minor share of such competitions is held by others. Furthermore, the public sector arranges proportionally more open competitions than others. Architectural competitions have been the most frequent in planning and design of schools, churches and parish centres, cultural halls, and town halls.xvii A detailed analysis of the classification of the Museum of Finnish Architecture archives shows that in some categories open competitions are favoured, while competitions by invitation dominate in others. For example, church or cemetery competitions are usually open but congregational centre competitions are more by invitation. Invitational competitions are utilised more for school complexes and for cultural centres open competitions are the norm. Competitions for low-rise housing have been mostly open, but those for apartment houses, often invitational.xviii The number of participants varies greatly from one competition to another. An invitational competition usually has 3-5 invitees. A modern open competition may collect anything from a few dozens to several hundred entries (including the few which are disqualified). The number of competitors seems to depend more on how special and interesting the task is than on how easy it is. The most popular competitions over the past 15 years have been for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinkixix, the Music and Art Centre of Jyväskyläxx, the Helsinki Music Hallxxi, the alteration and annex of the Åland Maritime Museumxxii and the Orthodox Church in Tikkurilaxxiii. Building design competitions regularly evoke more interest than planning competitions do. A building design task commonly receives 100-120 entries, whereas a planning task normally gets 40-60 entries. Both individuals and workgroups take part in architectural competitions. A general assumption among architects is that about every tenth professional is in the habit of participating in competitions. Students and bachelor degree holders of architecture compete as well. Annually, design professionals produce hundreds of entries for architectural competitions and secure 10-20 commissioned jobs per year. The figure could be weighed against the annual number of building permits granted, estimated to be around 60,000.xxiv Architectural competitions, though representing a very small share of the annual volume of the construction industry, often result in buildings and milieu of significance that have an influence on the living environment of residents and other users for decades, if not centuries. 1.4 Utilised resources Competitions utilise the resources of architects in several ways. Architects take part both in producing entries and in judging them. There are many reasons for them to participate in a competition: prospect of getting an assignment, gaining recognition and reputation, educating oneself and participating in the interesting task itself. Possible obstacles to participation are, for example, unwillingness to take risks, high amount of work and the costs associated with it, lack of assistants or a bad brief.xxv SAFA competition board always appoints two of its members to the jury board in open architecture competition and in a competition by invitation, the competitors jointly nominate an architect juror. The jury may also include architects representing the organiser. In competitions held by authorities for the procurement of planning or design services, a third of the members of the prize jury must have the same competence as is required of the competitors, according to the EU directive on public procurement. The SAFA-appointed jurors can be judged as supporting the associations goals. It is their task to ensure that the architectural aims of SAFA rules are fulfilled.xxvi In this context, one of the motives for not participating in a competition is interesting: unsuitable architect jurors’. This bit of architects jargon points to internal discussions in the profession and non-acceptance of views of some members. Architects make competition entries as individuals, in a team, or as employees of a participating firm. Producing competition entries is expensive and likely to create losses, because only a handful of entries will be rewarded and all costs are to be recovered from them. The hazard is both artistic and economic. If paid assistants are used, the risk has to be covered either by success or by using the profit from commissioned jobs.xxvii Women have had proportionally less success in competitions than their share of SAFA membership, and proportionally even fewer women have acted as jurors. It is, however, not possible to determine the gender distribution of those participating in a competition, because the sealed envelopes with the names are opened only for those winning a prize, a purchase or an honorary mention.xxviii 1.4.1 Risk taking Although architectural competitions are not the only source of new ideas, they are significant. Researchers in the practice of architectural competitions note that there are numerous advantages as the top professionals are attracted to participate and display their calibre, even as they are challenged by the unrestrained and unconventional new talent with new approaches, thus regenerating the very profession. Competitions liberate the designer/planner from routine constraints; accepted norms are contested and defied; novel approaches can be explored, and a new architectural language may emerge. Competitions generate intense interest and discussions among the public about planning and design aspects. On the down side, there is also the feeling that arranging competitions is quite troublesome and expensive. There are many reasons for this negative feeling: e.g., organisers and competitors may see the expense and time spent as impediments; if there is no dialogue between the client and architects in the initial phase, organisers end up with inadequate knowledge; high security requirements or buildings of high complexity may not attract sufficient bids or bids from competent agencies. This might result in the risk of a very expensive project, an inexperienced architect, or an impractical design winning. The meanings of design/planning competitions have been a subject for Helene Lipstadt, who stresses the difficulty of definition due to the multifaceted character of the competition: “Competitions are professional institutions, political events, and expressions of taste; for centuries they have been ever present and always different and thus, by their very nature, are slippery things to catch in the net of history.”xxix Wilson questions the assumption that design competitions result in experimentation or innovation and asks, "In spite of the belief in the experimental nature of competitions, is that really the nature of the competition process, or is there another side of competitions that results in conformity, or in what is expected? (Wison, 1991).”xxx 1.4.2 Discussion of the procedure There is often discussion about the balance between the goals of a competition brief and the creative approach of architects. Hilding Ekelund, Chief Editor of Arkkitehti, feels that programme requirements override other merits when he states, "Still I would wish to add the frequently seen practice of screening out entries on the grounds of other petty flaws instead of looking at their positive architectural values and overall approach; this certainly explains why quite mediocre designs - equally free of virtues as of faults - often have won many high prizes."xxxi Such criticisms brought about an amendment to the competition rules stipulating that although an entry that deviates from central instructions in the brief cannot be given a prize in an open competition, it is still eligible for purchase. SAFAs competition rules are more flexible in the sense that it is possible to commission a designer who has deviated from the instructions even if he has not won the first prize in the competition. For instance, at the competition for the Otaniemi Chapel in 1953, entry by Heikki and Kaija Siren was rated the best and awarded the job, even though it overstepped the limits of the building site. In competitions that are part of a procedure of public procurement, the organiser is obliged to inform whether the jurys decision binds the procuring authority. Competitions enthuse as well as frustrate architects. While the fact that competitions help to develop ideas, the systems and procedures for adjudication are looked upon with suspicion. Training programmes for the jury are not in place and there is also no recourse to appeal. In spite of this, architects agree that competitions offer better opportunities for artistic, functional or structural innovation than ordinary commissions do. Architectural competitions belong to specific times and places and are judged in those contexts. Discussing methods of judging used in Finnish architectural competitions, Sakari Aartelo notes that the jury influences the result or the competition to a decisive degree and that the jurors rely on intuitive feeling of what is a good design. According to Aartelo, there are several reasons for the variations in evaluation like jurors permanent or temporary qualities, general or specific methods of judging and variations due to external circumstances. A jury has limited time at its disposal and the jurors do not necessarily know each other in advance. Every competition is a unique case with its own brief and jury, just as a building project usually is unique.xxxii Architectural competition has been characterised as a process of creating and learning in which the responsibility for the result is divided between the competitors and the decision makers. Read More