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The projects and their makers
Archiprix 2000 has yielded a harvest of 26 final year projects, two less than the maximum number allowed. The Faculty of Architecture of the TU Delft and the Fontys Academy of Architecture and Urban Design in Tilburg each selected one plan less than the number permitted them. Of the 26 entries 19 were submitted by students specializing in architecture, four for landscape architecture and three for urban design. Relatively many plans were designed by two or more final year students, bringing it to a record 35 participants. A third of this year's designers are female. The growing tendency in the past few years to design for sites in other countries has subsided. Only four of the schemes for Archiprix 2000 were located abroad, making it the lowest percentage for foreign sites in more than ten years.
Conditions of entry
Each year the Dutch institutions of higher education whose main subjects are architecture, urban design and/or landscape architecture select their best final year projects of the past year and submit these to the Archiprix. The selection by the institutions for possible inclusion in the Archiprix takes place in accordance with the latter's conditions of entry and selection criteria. According to the conditions of entry the institutes concerned could each submit the following number of plans to Archiprix 2000: Delft 9, Rotterdam (including Arnhem and Groningen) 5, Amsterdam (including Maastricht) 5, Eindhoven 4, Tilburg 3 and Wageningen 2. This means that a maximum of 28 could be accepted. Besides these formal regulations, the conditions of entry contain the criteria underlying both the selection of plans by the institutes and the adjudication. The quintessential requirements are: that the outcome of the entry is an architectural, urban or landscape design; that this has an explicitly stated issue or issues as its basic premise; that there is a detailed account of how, working from the above issues, the scheme was arrived at.
When judging the plans the following elements are successively taken into account: the analysis of the task; the conceptual strength of the project; the spatial quality of the design together with a sensitive deployment of resources; an account of the plan in words and images; and finally the cohesion enjoyed by these elements. This cohesion is of major importance as it serves to demonstrate the entrant's mastery of the entire process insofar as this translates the set task into an appropriate three-dimensional solution.
The jury
Each year the Archiprix's executive board assembles a new independent jury of experts. In the interests of fairness, no persons directly connected with preparing a submitted scheme or directly related to a designer of such, may sit on the jury. The jury's task is to assess the submitted plans on their own merits and briefly comment on the substance of each. In addition it has to select the best entries and divide the prize money among them accordingly. There are five members of the jury, four experts in the three disciplines concerned and a theorist. The line-up of the jury who judged the final year projects of Archiprix 2000 is as follows:
- Eelco Hooftman - landscape architecture
- Liesbeth van der Pol - architecture
- Anna Vos - urban design
- Moshé Zwarts - architecture
Illness presented the fifth member, René Boomkens, from taking part in the adjudication. Secretary to the jury is Henk van der Veen of the Archiprix's administrative department. The entries were judged on three days in January and February 2000 in Delft.
General Remarks
Archiprix 2000 presents a wide diversity of schemes. Within this diversity the jury discerns a number of general tendencies which it outlines first before embarking on discussing the individual plans.
Spatial quality. In general the entries show these final year students to have a highly developed analytical capacity, with the relevant research filling a comparatively prominent role. The jury notes many exploratory designs that bring a broad spectrum of aspects into play, also from beyond the entrant's discipline. A verbal explanation accompanying the plan gives the designer's position on the themes treated in the project. In most cases the spatial development fails to do justice to the research. More often than not, the position articulated in the design report is lacking in the spatial concept, possibly compounded by a design left stranded at the diagram stage. Not infrequently there is insufficient concern for the spatial elaboration, the detailing and the construction. This applies particularly to the architecture entries, where the jury prefers to see spatial virtuosity rather than an exhaustive analysis, but in general holds for all the disciplines. A stronger attention to spatial quality would have contributed positively to the quality of the projects. A number of entries sidestep this tendency by concentrating on the spatial design. That holds especially for 'On the Amstel', 'Intercity Business Representation Centre', 'InMArGINE: Design for a place of death on the Müller Pier in Rotterdam', 'Luxury urban villas and the paintings of Francis Bacon' and 'Object Architecture on the Belgian Coast'.
Depth and/or breadth. Many plans look to aspects outside their field. Thus we see urbanistic and most importantly landscape-architectonic aspects figuring prominently in many architectural schemes. We also note forays into fields not directly abutting space design, such as ecology, town and country planning and the new media. With one or two exceptions the plans fail to shine in the provinces beyond their bounds. It would therefore seem a good idea to elaborate such plans in interdisciplinary design groups. That might not only improve the dialogue between the disciplines but also work wonders for the quality of the projects concerned.
Of the three fields, landscape architecture occupies a special position. Landscape architecture is the preeminent discipline where control needs exercising over all the levels of planning. Because this field operates at the macro level it is from there that it should guide events on the urbanistic and architectural fronts within its framework. Regrettably, this is anything but the case in all the landscape plans. Although these make mention of urban design and architecture in the design account, they remain underdeveloped in those fields, as the spatial aspects get a raw deal and as a rule lack quality. Conversely, there are architects who, while designing what are at times top-grade spatial landscape-architectonic proposals, then fail to come up to the mark on other aspects of landscape. 'Land of layers' is the only entry to consistently combine all three fields in one plan. All told, the jury has the impression that the quality of final year projects could improve if designers were to focus more on the core of the brief.
Infrastructure proves to be an extremely popular theme, playing a part in more than half the entries. Two are particularly worthy of mention as they address the issue of infrastructure from a new angle. In 'Land of layers' the infrastructure commands centre stage in a strategy of accelerating and decelerating, and 'Infra-ecology' makes intriguing play of the combination of infrastructure and ecology.
Water looms large on the infrastructural horizon this year. Influenced by current discourse on water management of the great rivers in combination with the popularity of living on or along the water, surface water is a key focal point among the entries. 'Buiteneiland IJBURG', 'Infra-ecology', 'Jungle Port City', 'Dead Sea health resort', 'Nature Super Vision', 'SILENCE - Building between dawn and dusk', 'Hooked on deregulation' and 'Wat Water Overlaat' all pick up on this trend. For the record, only 'Wat Water Overlaat' and to a lesser degree 'Infra-ecology' add new points of view to the theme of water. The remaining schemes use the waterfront as a sought-after site to spend a longer or shorter period of time.
Deceleration and acceleration. Time itself proves to be a popular theme, expressed in this year's entries in two extreme forms. At one end of the spectrum there are plans concerned with advances in technology and the accelerated world, at the other, plans attuned to nature and deceleration. To begin with the second category, we see that a relatively large number of entries resolutely distance themselves from reality. In most cases escape from acceleration takes the form of a flight from the hectic city-oriented society into nature. Though this response gives rise to sympathetic schemes these fail to yield ground-breaking ideas on the subject. Against that we can pit those plans that celebrate faith in technology and acceleration, an eloquent example being 'Infra-ecology'. Remarkably, the theme of time crops up not only at the macro level of planning but also where it concerns objects. Examples include 'HTLT / Pier 11 NYC', 'Dead Sea health resort' and the water dwellings of 'Nature Super Vision'. 'Land of layers', finally, brings deceleration and acceleration together in one model thereby opening up a new horizon on this subject.
Social relevance. Although the jury is the first to admit that a final year project need not necessarily be socially relevant, it does expect such projects to tackle themes with a social focus. So it is encouraging to see this happening in a number of entries, amongst which can be included 'Easytown', 'Land of layers', 'The people's park of the 21st century?', 'Digging in at The Hoof', 'Infra-ecology', 'Jungle Port City', 'Country estate, a culture of decongestion', 'Hooked on deregulation ' and 'Wat Water Overlaat'. While on the subject, there is remarkably little concern for a number of major socially relevant themes that the upcoming generation of designers is bound to run into in practice. Hence the jury's surprise that so few proposals enter into the current debates on new dwelling forms, work and the environmental aspects of building.
Labyrinth and ritual. This year's entries are proof on a renewed interest in the sombre and subterranean as articulated in the labyrinth and the ritual. Has the lightness of building become unbearable or does this reflective tendency issue from the approaching end of the millennium when the projects were done?
Balancing on the edge. Many buildings are sited on the edge, at transitions between landscapes, the border between land and water, ebb and flow, high and low. Concern for the centre seems to have lessened by comparison.
CAD. Most of the presentations were made with the help of the computer. The magnificent photorealistic perspectives of 'Transformatorium' are particularly convincing. Otherwise there is little to be discerned of the new media, most presentations consisting of traditional drawings and models. Nor is there evidence that the computer has been used to any extent during the design process. In that respect the training institutions seem to lag behind design practice.
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Awards
From the 26 submissions the jury singled out five of a notably higher quality, rewarding then with two prizes and three special mentions. The jury assessed the plans in the light of their intentions taking into account the above-mentioned criteria stipulated in the conditions of entry. The schemes selected were those that most convincingly attained the set task and scored high in all the criteria. The two first prizes were awarded to projects possessing exceptional qualities in one or more primary facets of the task and/or presenting ground-breaking ideas.
Shared first prize
- On the Amstel - Jaco Woltjer
- Land of layers - Marijn Schenk & Bart Reuser
Special mentions
- InMArGINE: Design for a place of death on the Müller Pier in Rotterdam - Roosmarie Carree
- Luxury urban villas and the paintings of Francis Bacon - Julietta Zanders
- Object Architecture on the Belgian Coast - Isabelle Krier
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