Be involved in supportive and rewarding competitions!
Milly Harvey, a third year student on the Architecture and Planning BA at the University of the West of England Bristol has written a blog piece describing their group's design process during the recent Totally Modular House iO Design Competition. This blog was first published in Babel, a student run online journal for the Department of Architecture and Built Environment. You can read more about the House iO competition in our recent news story and our House iO challenge page.
The opportunities provided by university go far beyond degree qualification. One such opportunity, was the HOUSE iO competition that took place this February. Hosted by James Burch, the four-day competition was kicked off by presentations from Ele George of Totally Modular; Zoe Metcalfe from ValueShift; Jesse Wilde of Bristol Housing festival; UWE alumni and Infill Works founder, Olly Sanger; as well as MOBIE CEO, Mark Southgate. The brief was to tackle homelessness in Bristol, utilising the Totally Modular construction system to design a safe, beautiful and functional solution.
Four full days is not particularly long for an architectural competition, many of which usually last several months. This rapid nature was definitely felt. Discussions and disagreements had to be resolved almost as quickly as they came up, meaning that the usual process of exploring all ideas fully to find an organic resolution, (without pressure of imminent submission) was lost. What you do get however, is an exercise in reducing architectural process and design into its most vital and basic elements. Balancing methodical and logical representation of ideas, with the experimental and creative approach needed to stand out in a competition, is a delicate act.
At this point I should mention my teammates are also my housemates. You may see this as advantageous; turning our living room into a studio certainly gave us better opportunity to quickly share ideas. Although I would counter this by saying that our living room was the studio. Where were we meant to relax and unwind? Where were we meant to eat our dinner!? This is an unusual yet quite representative example of the culture we, as architects, all partake in. Overworking, ignoring the boasts from other professions about their healthy work-life balance – what do they know? Architectural competitions themselves are quite controversial in this regard. They are seen to encourage overworking, and often if you do not win, you are left with no financial recognition for your efforts. The pay-off however, can be huge. In the world of professional competitions, small firms can be catapulted the into the orbit of the ‘star-chitects’.
In HOUSE iO’s case, Team Y won £500, a chance to visit the Totally Modular factory, as well as having their proposal considered for real life implementation on a site in Bristol! The winning team, Mahek Khushalani, Seanne Christhian, Zoe Restrick, and Isuri Ratnayake Mudiyanselage are all currently in their second year, at UWE and have made quite the impression on many of the industry professionals.
“As judges we loved judging this Totally Modular design competition… The judges were genuinely wowed by the standard of the work that the teams produced and we kept having to remind ourselves that the teams were not professionals and that they only had 4.5 days to create these designs from scratch – the results were amazing! The future of housing design is in great hands – we can’t wait to see what you all do next.” Mark Southgate, MOBIE CEO
But even for those of us that didn’t win, it was refreshing and encouraging to be seen as architects, not just as students. Not only is there limited time and opportunity for student competitions such as these, but there is also often a lack of confidence in the cases of some students to actually get involved when the opportunity does arise.
Throughout the week, there were daily tutorials, Q&A’s and presentations. With so many individuals giving up their free-time to support us through our designing, it is no surprise that the judges had a very difficult task on their hands.
So, students reading this, be sure to take the plunge and get involved in supportive and rewarding competitions such as these. Yes, it may be difficult, but you are not likely to regret it! And to Industry professionals, be sure to take the plunge and offer supportive, rewarding competitions and opportunities for students of architecture. As shown here, you are likely to also find unexpected benefits, get inspired, and be reassured that there are exciting times to come in the built environment…
