Greater compensation, visibility, and feedback on proposals among designers’ top priorities
Media Contacts:
Steven Thomson (212) 924-7000 x 12 | sthomson@vanalen.org
Mathilde Campergue (917) 881-9003 | mathilde@hellothirdeye.com
NEW YORK, April 15, 2015 – Architectural Record and Van Alen Institute today released the results of a design competition survey which prompted more than 1,400 designers from 65 nations worldwide to weigh in on what they love, hate, and want to change about competitions.
Design competitions have resulted in such iconic projects as Central Park, the Vietnam Memorial, and the Sydney Opera House. But critics charge that competitions compel designers to work for free, and waste the efforts of participants who don’t win. With support from the Graham Foundation, the Architectural Record / Van Alen Institute Design Competition Survey offered the rare opportunity for opinions and anecdotes to be quantified and recorded. Key findings from the anonymous responses include:
- Designers enter competitions so they can work more creatively than they would be able to in everyday practice, and explore new topics, ideas, collaborations, and skill sets outside of typical constraints. Respondents indicated that the top three reasons for entering competitions are 1) the opportunity to experiment (57.0% of survey entrants); 2) an interesting issue (54.9%); and 3) an opportunity to gain publicity (39.0%).
- The lack of compensation for time and resources spent is a primary limitation to designers participating in competitions. Respondents indicated that the top three limitations to participating in competitions are 1) lack of compensation for time/resources spent (78.6%); 2) low probability of winning (29.4%); and 3) no or low chance of implementation (28.6%).
- Respondents indicated a desire for more feedback (48%). This is especially crucial among students – 65% said it would make entering competitions more appealing. Students were also particularly interested in collaborating with people outside of the design fields.
Survey participants in their own words:
“Competitions offer the opportunity to explore design ideas that may not be easily addressed in more conventional projects. They also offer a platform for preserving a more inquisitive and nimble design process.”
“Unpaid competitions tell the public we don’t mind working for free or little compensation. Our society should value the time it takes a designer to create good ideas and implement good architecture.”
“Competitions are a process that challenge the conventional planning/bid/commission/RFP processes. Using the competition in a meaningful way to incorporate public dialogue and education about the importance of the built environment could be critical to the ongoing relevance and contribution of the design professions to their societies.”
“The practice of participating in design competitions serves to artificially suppress wages and keeps our new employees struggling through the first years of their career, because the perception is that we will work for free. In turn, what we produce as a product is not valued.”
In response to the survey findings, Van Alen Institute is calling for changes to how competitions are conducted through a series of 10 Propositions for the Future of Competitions. Among other reforms, the Propositions call for a new tracking system that reports the total hours designers commit to a particular competition to better communicate the value of design; invite cultural institutions to use competitions to address critical social challenges, rather than to produce new museums or performance centers; and call for competitions organizers to offer designers more visibility and learning opportunities and feedback for entering competitions, even if they don’t win.
“We were amazed by the huge number of passionate and eloquent responses from designers,” said David van der Leer, Van Alen Institute Executive Director. “This collective knowledge and experience will be a critical resource in making competitions a more productive, efficient, inclusive tool for improving cities and regions around the world.”
“Design competitions spark both creativity and frustration among design professionals,” said Cathleen McGuigan, Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Record. “We welcomed the opportunity to partner with the Van Alen Institute to explore this issue, which has such significance to our audience.”
The full survey report, key findings, and 10 Propositions are available on vanalen.org.
The results will be shared at The Design Competition Conference at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, April 23–24, which will convene designers, funders, non-profit leaders, government officials, and community advocates to offer case studies and panel discussions on notable competitions including the Guggenheim Helsinki and Rebuild by Design, and their impact on design, planning, and the built environment.
“Increasingly, competitions are seen as a way to solve everything and anything. The conference will review the state of design competitions today and their impact on competitors, sponsors, design, and the public interest,” said Jerold Kayden, Frank Backus Williams Professor of Urban Planning and Design, who serves as Co-Chair for the conference with Van der Leer.
The conference launches with a keynote panel moderated by Cathleen McGuigan, Editor-In-Chief, Architectural Record; featuring Craig Dykers, Founding Partner, Snøhetta; Francine Houben, Creative Director, Mecanoo; and Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean, Harvard GSD. Notable panelists during the two-day event include Jenn Gustetic, Assistant Director for Open Innovation, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Inga Saffron, Architecture Critic, Philadelphia Inquirer; Susanna Sirefman, President, Dovetail Design Strategists; Stephen Cassell, Chair, Van Alen Board of Trustees, and Partner, Architecture Research Office; and Nidhi Chaudhary, Vice President of Challenge Success, HeroX.
Van Alen Institute intends to implement the survey’s findings and discussions from The Design Competitions Conference in future public programs and the organization’s own competitions. “This topic isn’t going away,” said Van der Leer. “There will continue to be many opportunities to share the survey results and lobby for reforms, such as at the AIA National Convention, on panels about cities and innovation, and more. We’re not calling for impossible changes. We think organizers, clients, and designers can and should act on our Propositions.”
For nearly 120 years, Van Alen has been organizing inventive design competitions that shape the built environment, from temporary installations that activate public spaces to large-scale, multi-year environmental initiatives. The organization views the design competition as a vehicle to mobilize people across disciplines to develop innovative approaches to complex social, cultural, and ecological challenges around the world.
Van Alen competitions address challenges big and small: How can we better protect waterfront communities from devastating storms? What would a high-speed rail network look like in the U.S.? How can we engage visitors to Times Square through public art? The Institute collaborates with government, nonprofit, community-based, and private sector partners seeking forward-thinking solutions within varying budgets.
We connect the most talented teams of architects, sociologists, interaction designers, filmmakers, environmental scientists, and lead them together with local stakeholders and global experts in an iterative process to generate visionary ideas and concrete solutions. We experiment with interactive methods of involving communities in our projects, from public exhibitions and parades to bike tours and design-build workshops.
Among Van Alen’s current competitions are Future Ground, a project to develop integrated design and policy solutions to reuse vacant land in New Orleans, and National Parks Now, which seeks to transform the visitor experience at four national parks in the Northeast. Past competitions resulted in the redesign of the Times Square TKTS booth, reactivating a pedestrian intersection that is visited by 131 million people annually; proposals for the future of Gateway National Recreation Area’s 27,000 acres; a competition that identified Governor’s Island as a vital public space, serving as a harbinger of the distinctive urban park it is today; and Rebuild by Design, an initiative of President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to address the vulnerabilities that Hurricane Sandy exposed in communities and develop fundable solutions to better protect residents.
To partner with Van Alen on a competition project, contact Jerome Chou, Director of Competitions: 212 924 7000 | jchou@vanalen.org