Competitions

Abstract

Competitions are held in order to find the best solutions. This is one way of responding to the varied and exacting demands a given project has to satisfy, which may be functional, social, ecological, economic or technological, relating to urban planning or construction issues as well. As design results are not definable, in the sense that they cannot be judged solely by means of a price competition, a more complex decision-making process, in the form of a performance competition, is needed: a competition between several planners’ intellectual performances. Only the task is defined before submission, while the concept and the elements of the solution cannot be defined clearly and exhaustively at this stage. A performance competition is an appropriate way of choosing both a design concept and a design firm. It compares the intrinsic quality of the proposals, not their respective costs: while the cost of implementing any given design may be one of the selection criteria, the intellectual achievements of all the firms taking part are evaluated on an equal basis of objective guidelines. The client who commissions the design is buying the designer’s ideas and the designer’s competence.