Final Call for Papers

Architectural Competition

Nordic Symposium

Throughout the history, design competition has been deployed as a reliable and acquiescent system for assuring quality and as an efficient instrument for evaluation of the best design solutions.

Nordic countries are enjoying over hundred years of tradition in organizing architectural competition for selection of the best design practices. Every year, about 100 architectural and urban design competitions take place in the Nordic countries. The competition system is a recognized endeavour in the Nordic countries to elevating qualities and minimizing uncertainties in architectural design. It is also used to give partaking opportunity to talented architects to express their visions, to demonstrate their professional skills and to be rewarded, admired and endorsed publicly.

Competing in architecture has also gained new relevance in Europe through the EU’s Directive 2004/18/EG. Nowadays, the competition appears as a means to acquire new ideas and good design solutions for the whole of Europe. Architectural competition is also becoming a promoting method of architectural services in European market. According to the EU Directive of 2004/18/EG, public organizers of competitions are obliged to announce their competitions in public.

Structure:

The Symposium will be held in Stockholm. It is organized in cooperation between NoEND, NA (Nordic Association of Architectural Research) and the architect unions in the Nordic Countries. The Symposium is designed for all who are interested in architectural competition issues including senior researchers, PhD fellows and the universities teachers as well as critics and practitioners that have interests in architectural competitions.

Prominent keynote speakers will lead the symposium each day. We very welcome scientific papers and essays within the themes of the symposium.

The selected papers will be presented by their authors at parallel thematic workshops with opportunity to get expert advices in-group and/or individually. The best papers from the Symposium will be published in a Book of Proceedings.

Abstracts and Themes:

You are welcome to submit your Abstract before May 1, 2008. Abstracts can be written in English, Danish, Norwegian or Swedish with maximum 400 words. The workshops cover the whole architectural competition process; from programme, evaluation, selection, and ranking of the entries up to the appointment of the winner.

The symposium is going to be organized in four workshops each covering one of the following four themes.

• Architectural History Theme: background, establishment, demands, use and the development of roles for the architectural competition.
• Architectural Judging Theme: Organization, judging, ranking and selecting an entry; how the jury appoints/selects a winner in architectural competitions and justifies/motivates its choice.
• Professional Theme: the importance of architectural competitions for developing best practice, professional skills, designing new ideas and as a way to purchase architects/architectural services.
• Political Power and Urban Design Theme: architectural competitions as political issues in architecture; public spaces and town planning; competition as a way to express power; Making decision for the future built environments.

Registration and Fee:

Deadline for registration is May 15, 2008 for authors and September 15 for other participants. The fee for attending the Nordic Symposium is 1500 Sek (VAT not included). The fee includes 2 dinners, coffee/tea refreshments, and copies of papers. The number of participants is restricted.

Organizing Secretariat:

Reza Kazemian, Associate Professor, reza@infra.kth.se
Magnus Rönn, Associate Professor, magnusr@arch.kth.se
Charlotte Svensson, Research fellow/PhD candidate, charlottes@arch.kth.se
Jonas Andersson, Research fellow/PhD candidate, jonasa@arch.kth.se

For further information and early registration, please contact the Organizing Secretariat. Papers and Abstracts can be sent via e-mail attachment to Mr Jonas Andersson, jonasa@arch.kth.se and/or Ms. Charlotte Svensson: charlottes@arch.kth.se