Do you think that contemporary architectural competitions are driven by the objective of 'urban regeneration' as introduced with the 2011 new regulatory plan?

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No. I think that only a few of these competitions actually focus on urban regeneration. Most competitions are organized by authorities -either state-owned or municipal- at local scale and they involve built interventions that respond to their particular needs; usually a building or a site located within their area of interest. I would say that architectural competitions are used primarily for that.  

  

Would you care to comment on the rate of architectural competitions compared to the total number of public projects that are being designed and implemented every year?

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The number of architectural competitions is quite limited. Every year, SADAS receives a number of complaints for projects that ought to have resulted via competitions instead; they were carried out without one. This is mostly due to the fact that authorities that propose projects that would normally be characterized as 'worthwhile' according to 2011 regulation and thus be subject to an architectural competition are being exempted from the obligation to organize one by either Local Councils for Urban Issues & Disputes or even the Central Council as well. This is a common practice most Municipalities resort to under the false pretense that organizing and carrying out an architectural competition is a time consuming process that may endanger funding deadlines. Of course, this is a distorted interpretation of the process as relevant authorities can always start by organizing the competition first and seek funding later.

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Municipalities also complain about the cost of competitions in prizes and jury reimbursements. In order to address this issue last year we managed to secure the sum of 1,200,000.00 euro from the Green Fund to be designated to Municipal competitions only. We had originally calculated that if the average cost of a competition is around 60,000.00 euro, then almost 20 competitions could be funded this way. As it turns out, only one Municipality asked for money and that sum was never actually used.  This makes me think that is not about funding at all; it is mostly about how authorities prioritize competitions in their overall planning. It is also about patronage; not wanting to disrupt the customer relations they've built over the years with a series of major players in the construction industry.

 

Do you think that architectural competition organizers follow the regulations properly?

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I think they do, yes. Probably because current regulation stipulates that objections can be filed in cases where the process has not been carried out properly. The organizational committee of an architectural competition cannot afford to make mistakes as there are a lot of things at stake, especially considering the implications that something like that could have on the winners. In many cases they even ask SADAS to confirm that their proclamation is correct prior to publishing it. 

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It is actually very hard to do something wrong as this is a rather typical bureaucratic procedure with specific stages: the proclamation; the supporting files etc. In some cases competitions can be flawed especially when they are carried out in a rush. This is not illegal of course; however, these competitions turn out to be less creative/productive, less mature. Procedural issues may also arise in the form of belated jury payments. In the past, a few colleagues have denounced competition results claiming that jury evaluations were not properly grounded or that awarded projects did not fully address the criteria set by the competition brief. But none of these disputes has ever ended in cancelling the competition results.

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During 1980's and 1990's SADAS had created work groups with the aim of improving and upgrading competition regulations. That effort culminated in the 2011 state regulation and its consecutive amendment in 2014. Do such groups still exist?

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They do, yes. There is in fact an active working group that oversees the creation and implementation a new operational framework for competitions in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture. Their aim is to make the organizational process clearer and more flexible so that authorities can no longer claim otherwise. This is a new group however, that has not produced any results yet.  

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Does SADAS still monitor the application of the 2011 law and its 2014 amendment?

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Yes we do. And in numerous cases we have even succeeded in blocking projects that defied competition criteria. This doesn't necessarily mean that the Municipality responsible for them actually went through with a competition; they just cancelled their overall plans. SADAS also argued against the 2012 bill on building commissions that wanted to exonerate authorities from the obligation to assign the project study and implementation to the first prize winners. Although the bill did not affect the competition process directly, it threatened their relevance in regard to commissions. In fact, commissions are a delicate matter that still remains unresolved: first prize winners, along with anyone else interested in carrying out this project must submit an offer where they clearly state their estimated compensation for carrying out the final study and the discount they are willing to make to that sum. Right now offers are not considered so much in scoring because organizers silently protect first prize winners. But unless their rights are somehow legally protected this could mean that someone with a lower fee could get the job instead.

Our latest battle regards the recent interventions made in Omonoia Square: this is a huge issue for us for we were originally assured that they were only considering restoring it in its previous form. According to current regulation a historic square such as Omonoia definitely falls into the 'worthwhile' project category meaning that any change in its plan should be a product of an architectural competition. However, Athens Municipality asked the Central Council to make an exemption and the Council has in fact conceded in doing that. And we still don't even know who the author of the intervention is.

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Do you think that architectural competitions are now more democratic?

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Competitions have always been a democratic and open institution. In fact, I think that they still are the best possible way for carrying out a project study. Of course they demand a lot of time and energy and they also require that participating designing tems invest a lot of money in 3d renderings and refined presentations. Sometimes, however, I think that this trend in producing fancy presentations excludes many of the older generation designers who have failed to follow suit with this type of work.  

 

What do you think about the current jury system? Do you think their role should be reinforced?

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Bigger juries can better guarantee transparency for they tend to be pluralistic and not so easily biased. We need to create two separate lists for competition jury members: one for small-scale projects where younger architects can become jury members and acquire experience and another list for large-scale projects of greater importance. I also think participation in a jury should be a result of a ballot and not a direct appointment because then you risk influencing the final selection. There is also a need to regulate the kind of engineers that participate in a jury: there have been occasions in the past where the jury consisted of civil engineers only. I realize there is a need to consult other disciplines, but for me an architectural competition should primarily be judged by architects. Maybe a mediator should be introduced to ensure best-practices.

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So, have we made any progress with the 2011 law? What would you suggest should be done to improve the current system?

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My understanding is that we haven't really and that there is still a lot room for improvement. This is still a very complex framework conditioned by bureaucracy and the current memorandum laws. I think a more systematic approach is needed to at least facilitate the initial stages of competitions: perhaps proclamations should be standardized by law so that Municipalities will find it easier to take up on carrying out a competition. We also need to address the indeterminacy of the term 'worthwhile': what exactly constitutes a project worthy of a competition? So far, we haven't been able to provide with an exact description of the kind of projects that should definitely be subject to a competition.

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There is also the issue of ideas competitions: so far, our experience has shown that this type is preferred over the others because it exonerates authorities from any obligation to actually carry out the project. Ideas competitions should be limited to specific cases and be necessarily followed by architectural design competitions especially when authorities intend to build the project or at least part of it. Otherwise, ideas competitions winning proposals could end up on the desk of some municipal employees working for its technical department leaving up to them to actually implement this proposal, which is of course impossible.

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Another obscure point lies in the way sponsorships are configured: the 2012 law gives sponsors the right to choose who designs their project. This is a clause that jeopardizes the democratic character of competitions and also the quality of the produced results. In a competition, there will be at least twenty to thirty proposals and therefore a great variety of ideas and programs whereas in sponsorships there will be only one.