Kaohsiung Maritime Competition
Archinect
A few weeks ago, we shared our opinion on the benefits of the open architecture competition. Whether you believe entering competitions degrades architects because ideas are shared without monetary compensation, or whether you find that competitions inspire your creative edge, how about this scenario: a competition canceled one day after the submission deadline.
More about the canceled competition after the break.
The competition for the Kaohsiung Maritime Cultural & Popular Music Center included a brief that one participant explained as being “hundreds of pages long and required months of work and coordination with multiple consultants. Not to mention the cost of producing 15 hard copy books for the submission. For any office that did it the right way (meaning they paid their employees) the overall cost of investment is easily in the 10s and maybe 100s of thousands for this competition.”
The suspension of the competition is both unfortunate and unprofessional. As stated in the apology letter below, all submissions will be returned to the architects unopened; however, why are the proposals not archived for when the competition resumes?
Although the exact cause for cancellation is not known (the competition officials stated it was related to the jury selection), one participant felt that the lack of stararchitect involvement in the competition had something to do with it. Perhaps the jury was not satisfied with the firms participating and wanted to push the date farther back in the hopes of attracting other firms to submit proposals. Speculation, yes; but still an interesting theory.
Here is the cancellation notice from their website:
Date: June 8th, 2010
Dear Competition Participants:
Thank you for your participation in the Kaohsiung Maritime Cultural & Popular Music Center International Competition Project.
In order to ensure the process of the competition is conduced flawlessly, after thoughtful consideration, Kaohsiung City Government has decided to temporary suspend the competition. The delivered proposals will be returned without opening as soon as possible. For further information about the re-announcement of the competition, please visit our web site at: www.kpop.com.tw
I hope you can accept my sincerely apology. Thank you for your understanding.
Sincerely Yours,
Construction Office, Public Works Bureau,
Kaohsiung City Government, Taiwan, R.O.C.
We’d like to know your thoughts, especially if you participated in the competition.
As seen on Archinect.
nature of the work… however if there is any truth to the “starchitect” theory than the whole comp is a joke.
I do read “temporarily suspend”, not “cancel” as you state in your title… I think this is terribly misleading.
Concerning your theory about the lack of involved starchitects, I’m not sure their behaviour is anyhow a good way to attract starchitects.
When this same government client postponed the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control competition it was due to a change in political leadership. Apparently the incoming administration wanted credit for the project so they cancelled the competition and re-announced it under their stewardship. Could be a similar issue this time around. In fact, I think it was at the same time of year.
” … one participant felt that the lack of stararchitect involvement in the competition had something to do with it.”
Why would a “stararchitect” need to spend tens or hundreds of thousands on a proposal contest to get a job?
I agree your title is very misleading! The competition was not canceled just postponed. A more recent post on the competition website states: “Re-opening of the procurement is scheduled to be announced in August, and stage one jury session is scheduled to be held in September this year. No changes will be made to the design brief.”
Amazing.
This sort of competition bungling isn’t that uncommon in mainland China, but I would have assumed more professional organization in Taiwan.
You from Taiwan?
This same scenario happened for the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control Competition two summers ago. It was also run by the same government authority. Although the submissions were returned unopened, the competition was in fact reinstated a few months later. So, there is still hope. The real downside to this was that materials had to be shipped twice, which amounted to hundreds of dollars, as well as a change in the stage 2 policy of reimbursement. Yes, they did reimburse stage 2 participants, but the amount was much lower than originally stated. I personally will never compete in another open competition run by this agency. I have also heard other horror stories from firms (internationally reknowned ones) working on projects dealing with the Taiwanese government. Some offices have instated a “no work” policy there.
Nice. I was about to type the same story and saw your post, CW. I wonder if they are even building any of these projects. I think the government is using these competitions to raise its image as an architecturally and socially sophisticated client.
Is it anonymous or a named architect comp like many of the Taiwanese comps which obviously gravitate to starchitects.
Unfortunately for those who did enter this is the nature of competition.
We only do comps to give our staff a break and bit of a design breather… it is money wasted 100% of the time… even if you win it is probably only 50% chance you will get it built. The fees you win for shortlisting are a lot of the time too small to cover costs for the initial submission let alone second stage.
I also get the feeling that these random city ones are even a bit worse than usual.
Why would they send the entries back?? They shouuld give you the option of resubmitting if you like, and if not just wait until the comp is re-opened with its unchanged brief.
Strange… but not unexpected.
Unfortunately competitions are one way we cheapen our profession. I know of associations who will specifically fgo to competition as it is essentially getting ideas/concepts for free! Why wouldn’t you?
It’s like tendering except you don’t get paid anything for completing sketch design!
How does the “participant” know the identity of ALL the other parties involved?
Can’t they be sued?
I’M AMAZED!!
15 A3 paper printed (8,3kg!) 300€ FedEx, 500€ printing, 5 000€ working..!!
Let’s moove and do something: we are organising an exhibition in many cities and will ask our lawer to have an action against taiwan gouv.
Please follow this facebook link:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php?customize&gid=127740050590045#!/group.php?gid=127740050590045
5000€ for work ?
Are you kidding me ? And you really expect something from so little time spent on a competition ? It’s roughly 3 weeks of work for one single person !
don’t be surprised if you see that project built with one of the “unopened” competition entries. i’ve seen it happen in korea before.
My opinion is that it is impossible for the organizer to know who participates in this competition, so without opening of the name envelopes it is impossible to know who submit his work.
It was not an anonymous competition; so it was easy to know the name of the companies participating.
I was in Kaohsiung to deliver the 32kg box… and as my company, I’m a bit upset. Especially because nobody seemed to know about the postponing when I was there…
We invest a lot of time/money on it, without having any chance to compete. That’s sad for open internationl competition future in Taiwan…