PUBLIC COMPETITIONS
Eduardo Cadaval
Previously, I wrote about the need to democratize the process by which public projects are created and assigned. In that text I did not use the word contest once. I did not do it, because I believe that it is a term that is commonly misused and that it simplifies a much more complex problem.
Competitions per se are nothing more than mere administrative procedures: the mechanism by which conflicting interests are resolved while taking advantage of this situation to obtain a benefit. This practice is used in many professional fields, both public and private, where tenders are part of daily life and through which economic proposals or technical alternatives are discriminated, but suppliers are also selected or possible acts of corruption are discouraged.
Competitions are also the tool with which democratic societies manage access to opportunities offered by the State: from a university place through an entrance exam to the contract for the construction of a highway. Insolvency proceedings are not only intended to find the most suitable option, they are also one of the few ways to assign scarce goods paid with public money to those who have the most merits to obtain them.
In the case of architectural competitions, the problem is perhaps a little more complex, but the principle is the same; They are nothing more than an instrument and their true potential lies in how the mechanism is used. In the case of Mexico, we started practically from scratch. The culture of the contests is null and the majority of those that have been carried out have been a true disaster. In a sobering text published on Proyectopublico.org, Antonio Gallardo warns us of the various repercussions due to the lack of an adequate regulatory framework and also explains the enormous complications that exist to build it.
It seems essential to assimilate in any way that the effort to create this regulatory framework will not be of much use if we do not manage to build a greater democratic and accountable culture that allows these processes to be carried out in a regulated and transparent manner. Many politicians and public servants refuse to hold competitions, arguing that “there is always a riot”, “that architects complain about everything” and that it is preferable to opt for the efficiency and discretion of direct assignments. None of this appears to change until the “riot” really “sets in” when these agents choose not to run contests, that is, until it is less problematic to run a contest than not.
As a union, it is our civic responsibility to work to force this change, otherwise no one is going to do it. The architects of this country have become used to being extorted every time they want to do their work. In this context, the null requirement for things to be done differently is not surprising. It seems that we have become used to mistreatment. The fact that a scandal is not organized every time a direct assignment happens not only portrays us as a country, it is also an X-ray of the little civic commitment of the union. We architects are the ones who are most familiar with this problem, therefore, as professionals and as citizens, it is our duty to denounce it and try to change things. What do students and young architects think of all these abuses? Why don’t they demand better conditions to be able to develop their professional life? Why is there not yet a # yosoy132 of architecture? How is it that schools commit the irresponsibility of believing themselves outside this discussion?
It is important to be aware that competitions will not be the solution to all our ills nor will they automatically improve the level of our architecture as is sometimes thought; there is even a great probability that in the first years of implementation of the system the results will not be as expected and that many of the winning projects will have little or no quality. But the important thing is the long-term strategy, where two birds would be killed with one stone: on the one hand, things would be done as they are supposed to be done in a democratic society and on the other, competition would help us to improve the level of projects and to raise public discussion about them.
TYPES OF CONTESTS
There are many valid formulas for organizing contests; some of them used even in the private sector: there are open competitions but there are also by invitation, restricted to teams that can demonstrate some experience or technical qualifications. Sometimes, when it comes to buildings of great complexity or scope, it is required that the participating teams have a previous practice in buildings of similar characteristics. There are restricted contests regulated under positive discrimination policies where the participation of young people, women or even minorities is privileged. There are ideas contests where the ultimate goal is not to build a building but to meditate on a topic of significance; sometimes convened by city councils or public entities simply as an exercise in reflection in the search for multiple answers to a single problem or to promote public discussion about it.
There are other contests that are in phases and that may even have a first stage in which the call is open and from where a group of participants is subsequently selected. Sometimes, from this set, proposals are requested to select a smaller group for a second or third stage. Of course, all invitational contests should be remunerated and do not think that these can be held at no cost.
Another type of competition is the so-called «services and works». In these, services are tendered comprehensively, both to design and construct a building or infrastructure. These very common competitions in England or other European countries promote collaboration between companies and generate that large construction companies hire the services of specialized architectural design offices since the score for the quality of the project is assigned independently to the economic proposal. Sometimes the budget presented by the construction companies is higher than those of their competitors and therefore obtains a lower score, but in return, the architectural proposal is of such high quality that it obtains enough points to offset the difference with the other proposals presented. and thus win the tender.
The contest system is far from perfect; In the case of those of a public nature, there are very valid arguments that question aspects such as their high inefficiency or the large number of work hours wasted in vain by teams that are not selected. It is also objectionable that architects have a priori to give away their work to see if someone is interested in hiring their services.
Some argue that not all public projects can be carried out by competition and that there should also be the possibility of direct assignments. This position has some strong arguments but would be unimaginable in many contexts. In Europe – to give an example – it is impossible to think of direct assignments because they are simply not socially accepted in any area and under any concept. Architecture or urban planning cannot be the exception, so any public contract that exceeds a minimum amount that oscillates around fifteen or twenty thousand euros must be entered into. Whether it is a contract for a catering service or for the design of a building, democratic rules come first and everything must adhere to them.
Implementing a good competition system in Mexico would have such enormously positive repercussions that achieving it would do much more for the country’s architecture than the best possible building or the ensemble of the most talented architect’s work that we can imagine. It would be desirable, even if it means getting into the politicians’ vanity game, for someone to understand it and want to hang this medal because in the end we would all benefit from it.
GOOD PRACTICES
There are many examples from where we can learn successful strategies implemented in other parts of the world. It would be easy to edit a good practice manual. In Switzerland, each restricted competition has to include a “young” office that has not previously participated in a similar assignment. In this same country, on various occasions, the work of the jury does not end with the selection of the winner or the decision of the contest, but rather that its members have to monitor the development of the project so that it does not detract from its original version and thus guarantee , among all those involved, the final quality of the project and even the prevention of budgetary deviations. In a country as influenced by direct democracy as Switzerland, involving the jury throughout the process also helps the authorities to validate their decisions. On many occasions, it is not strange that once the contest has failed, a referendum is held to approve the suitability of the selected project before proceeding with the rest of the process for its construction. In Switzerland, as in many northern European countries, the previous work in the preparation of a competition, its bases and request documents are so exhaustive that this completely facilitates the rest of the building process.
Other examples, in Italy, every team that chooses to participate in a public competition must have among its ranks an architect with less than 4 years of experience. In France, where there are practically no open competitions and almost everything is managed through restricted competitions, the fees for participating in these are so high that they would allow a small office to sustain itself for a year. In Germany, restricted competitions usually include invitations to renowned architects, but the same number is also included for anonymous offices and finally around 15% for young offices. As it is sometimes difficult to judge the merits of the latter since they usually have little or no work built, what is usually done is to sort the number of available places among the number of applications and leave, exactly as in the lottery, that the random is the one who decides. Of course, once the selection has been made, all proposals must be submitted under strict anonymity to guarantee the neutrality of the ruling. In England, a certificate on social welfare that a firm promotes among its employees may be a requirement to be selected to compete and, in the United States, having minorities or people with disabilities among the employees of a firm gives extra points on those teams that do not have them.
Spain, which now pays for the excesses committed in times of abundance, should be recognized for having created one of the most comprehensive and effective systems when it comes to managing and assigning public projects. The examples of good practices are abundant: from the participation of the architects’ associations in the management of the competitions, to the creation of the legal structures that allow them, or the selection of part of the jury by all the contestants. Spain is a good example of how a structured competition system allowed to raise the level of its architecture to unimaginable levels. Its repercussions permeated the dynamics of universities and architecture firms, which ultimately resulted in the best architects building the country’s public architecture.
I end up using a simile; Nobody wonders why Mexico is not good at alpine sports, the answer is obvious: we do not have snow or the necessary infrastructure to practice these sports. The ridiculous made in our few participations in winter Olympics prove it. Does anyone think that in architecture or any other area this is different? If we don’t have the structures that allow us to exercise and do things the right way, we will never be able to improve.
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