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Facts and figures
Twenty-eight projects were submitted to Archiprix 2002, the maximum number of entries allowed. The institutions taking part selected 22 final-year projects in architecture, three in landscape architecture, two in urban design and one final-year plan whose designer specialized in both architecture and urban design. The number of urban design entries has dropped again after a slight increase last year. Most of this year's projects were done individually, with only one designed by a pair of students. Of the 29 entrants 21 were male and eight female. The input by women students has receded somewhat in comparison with previous years. Remarkably, the ratio between men and women among the Delft contingent is fifty-fifty. This is reasonably consistent with the student population in Delft with its narrow female majority. Of the other institutions only three submitted schemes were designed by women.
The number of entries designed for sites abroad have decreased dramatically over the last two years. In the preceding decade the percentage of foreign sites had been in the region of 25%. This year it barely managed 10% with three plans all told. The Randstad conurbation and Rotterdam in particular have never been so popular. Half of all entries were for a design in the Randstad. Add the two plans for Almere and the one for Amersfoort and the percentage of schemes for this region rises as high as 60. No less than six projects were for a site in Rotterdam.
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 takes place in accordance with the conditions of entry and selection criteria set down by the Archiprix. According to the conditions of entry the institutes concerned could each submit the following number of plans to Archiprix 2002: 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; and 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 lastly 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 2002 is as follows:
- Paul van Beek - landscape architecture
- Roy Bijhouwer - urban design
- Jacq. de Brouwer - architecture
- Winka Dubbeldam - architecture
- Harm Tilman - theory
Secretary to the jury is Henk van der Veen of Archiprix.
Awards
The entries were judged on January 8th and 11th 2002 in Delft. Before those dates the jury received for each scheme a text composed by the designer giving the essence of his or her plan. In the period between the two dates the jury studied the designs and the accompanying texts. It assessed each project on the basis of the criteria set down by the Archiprix.
General remarks
Before discussing the entries individually, several general observations need making. Reviewing this year's yield as a whole, the jury has identified the following tendencies.
Quality - In general this year's crop of architectural projects is of a decidedly high quality and the three-dimensional designs are for the most part tailored to the programmes they are to accommodate. This is encouraging, all the more so in that these are key qualitative aspects. The jury is more critical of the ratio between theory and design in the majority of the schemes, confronted as it was with top-heavy theoretical essays with no appreciable link with the designs. There are designs which though commendable in themselves, have to get their message across unaided by a relevant explanation. As a result the buildings in question fail to come to life. The jury feels that the institutes should devote more practical attention to this phenomenon. Another shortcoming is the failure to work methodically, or not methodically enough. This often begins with a fairly uninspiring issue or set of issues, usually followed by a linear process targeted straight at the design. Feedback and reflection are as a rule entirely absent and the designer seems preoccupied from the word go with the end-result. There is little in the way of comparative research which might have led to new insightful solutions. In addition, there is often no logical relationship between the issue or issues and the plan.
The exceptions that prove the rule are Dust Jacket - Municipal Library - 's-Hertogenbosch, Biceps, Critical Mass, Three Intuitive Studies of Manhattan + Almere's Identity of Non-Identity, Dealing with Vierhaven and, to a slightly lesser degree, The Bandwidth of Activity. These better projects do have a lucid, cohesive structure underlying the design and are accompanied by readily legible, logically constructed written accounts.
Refuge - Two main strands can be discerned among this year's schemes. There are those that stick close to reality as regards both the brief and its development; these include Randstad Rail, Oslo Opera House and Dust Jacket. And there are studies that result in a design; amongst these are Three Intuitive Studies of Manhattan + Almere's Identity of Non-Identity, Critical Mass, Other space, Design method for an architecture of surprise, Dealing with Vierhaven and to a lesser degree Mobile / Home. Interestingly, in some of these more scholarly plans their designers construct on the strength of their research a refuge or retreat which brings them to original, ground-breaking solutions. This generating of ideas from a particular vision on architecture leads surprisingly often to exceptional results. The jury regards this strategy of communing with architecture to be of great importance.
The role of the institutions - The jury has the impression that the designers' enthusiasm for interesting tasks is insufficiently channelled at times by some of the institutions. A few schemes might have been stronger if the students had been helped more with the principal aspects. These include the likes of Uptown, Design method for an architecture of surprise, Living along the motorway, Westerwolde, MA7x and Other space. In some countries such as America the aims and objectives of courses are very closely monitored, and this can be read in the consistency of their final-year plans. This seems to be less so in the Netherlands.
Themes - Infrastructure, often combined with dwelling, proves to be the big hit among this year's final-year projects. Examples include Mobile / Home, Living along the motorway, Other space, A Bridge Too Far, Biceps, MA7x, Rotterdam Art Centre, Randstad Rail and Zeppelin port.
In an entirely unexpected twist, themes one would expect to find among final-year projects are missing this year. These are themes of great importance for developing the discipline, or tasks of current relevance. For example this batch of Archiprix projects pays almost no attention to dwelling in the sense of floor plans and interiors. There are, additionally, no small-scale briefs for the public realm, such as squares and gardens. Finally, in view of the keen interest in infrastructure it is astonishing that there are no designs for transportation exchange centres.
The disciplines - The most significant and deep-rooted problem would seem to centre around the disciplines as such. The quality of most of the landscape entries is nowhere near that of the architecture plans. Again, the majority of the urban design offerings fall short of the high quality one might expect here. There is, besides, no link-up between the three disciplines. The jury is well aware that this diagnosis is based on a handful of designs, yet these are arguably the best the past year has to offer. It is precisely because a great need exists in practice for designers of vision at the macro planning levels that it is dramatic to have to conclude that the institutes are producing so few good landscape architects and urban designers. This problem seems to be most active in the province of landscape architecture. It is high time that the profession began to make real headway. Urban restructuring, urban designing at the regional scale, large-scale transformations in agriculture and water management, giving shape to the landscape in the advancing processes of change affecting north-west Europe - all these require the input of a great many more talented designers. If the government lacks the necessary insight into the landscape problematic at present, so it seems do the institutes and, consequently, the new professionals.
As is happening in practice, we see students of the other disciplines turning to the province of landscape architecture. But the landscape designs of architects and urban designers fail to attain the desired quality in this area. For that matter, the architectural proposals of the landscape architecture students are fairly unconvincing too. Each discipline requires it own attitude and addresses a specific scale and a specific field of knowledge.
The jury feels that openness and collaboration between the disciplines is of the essence. Multi-disciplinary cooperation during studies could help to forge a relationship between the various fields and to articulate one's own discipline prior to entering professional practice. For the designers in all three disciplines it is essential to have a good idea of the other two. Each discipline must seek out the boundaries of the others from the vantage point of its own responsibilities. It is important for architects to understand the dynamic urban and rural issues. But it is also important that one's own discipline should shine through in the design. Multi-disciplinary collaboration with designers and with policy-makers could produce some interesting results. It would make available the necessary expertise when working on briefs that reach beyond the borders of one's discipline. This in turn could enhance the quality of such integrated schemes.
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Awards
This year's entries include a broad top layer of projects of a superior quality. After discussing the individual plans the jury made an inventory of likely candidates for a prize or special mention. This brought the number down to the following eleven schemes listed here in alphabetical order: Biceps by Ingeborg Thoral, Critical Mass by Kyra Frankort, Dealing with Vierhaven by Harm Timmermans, Dust Jacket - Municipal Library - 's-Hertogenbosch by Rob Willemse, Final Place - freedom in leave-taking by Ilona van Alphen, M.A.S. museum by the river by Ralf van der Donck, Other space by Dennis Hofman, Rotterdam Art Centre by Sean Matsumoto, The Bandwidth of Activity by William Veerbeek, Three Intuitive Studies of Manhattan + Almere's Identity of Non-Identity by Olv Klijn and Zeppelin port at Schaesberg by Maurice Jennekens. The jury then agreed that four of these plans stood out from the rest. All four were nominated by every member of the jury. These projects and their awards are as follows:
shared first prize
- Dust Jacket - Municipal Library - 's-Hertogenbosch by Rob Willemse
- Dealing with Vierhaven by Harm Timmermans
second prize
special mention
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