Student + Design + Competition: Decoding the Competition Culture

It is believed that young1 or undiscovered designers bring fresher and innovative ideas to the table of architectural competitions. For many aspiring and unrecognized young designers, a design competition is an opportunity to win public contracts and recognition through good, innovative design. Bjarke Ingels, Zaha Hadid, Alvar Aalto, Henry Hobson Richardson, Daniel Libeskind, Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers are all examples of well-known architects who gained recognition by entering and winning an architectural design competition, and thus catapulting their careers into the limelight. The idea of competition is a very intriguing one. Competition brings forth passion, excitement, visionary ideas and the ambition to succeed. As an architecture student, it is very inspiring to discover the story of Maya Lin, who was a mere twenty-year-old undergraduate student at Yale University when her design for the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial triumphed over 1,420 other entries. More impressive than winning the competition as a student was that Maya Lin’s design was actually constructed. Maya Lin’s story encourages young designers to compete side-by-side with prestigious architects. Yet some architects regard young designers with a lack of respect. They equate not having the architecture license as having inadequate 1 For this investigation, the author will identify the term “young designer” as an undergraduate or graduate student studying at a university or college, an individual under forty years of age, or a newly established firm with less than five years of experience. In addition, the term “designer” replaces the identity of an “architect” as an individual cannot be given the title architect unless he or she is licensed