A (Very) Bad Idea

Here is a contest advertized on Archdaily. For those who don't want to check out the link, here it is in a nutshell - teams of students are given 5 days to solve a complex architectural problem, they make their submission, the best 3 get money, the winner gets money and a job (or jobs) after graduating. The problem statement is "redefine the meaning of sustainability in architecture". Or that might be last years problem. Presumably the winner's already solved it. Here's why that is a really bad idea (and potentially very cruel).

The average frosh in architecture school is either 17 or 18. By the time they're advanced enough to have a chance in a competition like this they will be 21 or 22. Older students will enter but I would guess the average age of the competitors will be around 23. Architecture students are famous for working all night. The longest I ever went without sleep (in architecture school) was about 70 hours. Other people have gone much, much longer. Lou Reed once said he stayed awake for 5 straight days when he was hanging around Andy Warhol's factory because he didn't want to miss anything interesting. But for that kind of stamina you need drugs.

The chair of the panel of judges is a partner in OMA. You've heard of them because they're Rem Koolhaas's firm and you've heard of him. So getting a gig with them is a huge career move. When I was in school, I knew people who were using their Epi pens as study aids, snorting coke in the washrooms, taking Ritalin by the handful, grinding up commercially available "Wakeness" aids and snorting that, all manner of very unhealthy behaviour. And there was no prize involved other than bragging rights. First prize for this is roughly $5K CAD plus a job plus international exposure. I don't even want to know what kids (if you consider people younger than 25 kids and I do) are willing to do for the kind of career boost this can give.

So, in terms of public safety it's not a great idea. It's a bad idea. What takes it from "bad" to "very bad" is the idea you can do something interesting in 5 days about a pervasive, multifaceted, multidisciplinary, and global problem like "sustainability in architecture". For those of you who don't speak architect, sustainability is how we describe our ongoing efforts to make buildings that aren't so blatantly and sometimes mind-bogglingly wasteful. It's a huge problem. I would argue it's the biggest problem in architecture, since it requires a rethinking of massing and form, structure, materials, building orientation, urban planning, life cycle costing, how to measure and reward efficiency, how we travel (and how much), etc etc. Everything about building (except design) requires enormous amounts of energy - in the sense of oil, gas, hydro, or nuclear.

The logic behind the 5 day limit is "in the real world" architects don't have months to contemplate various alternative solutions. Everything has to be fast and good. I don't have much sympathy for ITRW arguments. It allows too much bullshit through the filters. In the REAL WORLD... is what someone says when they are tired of thinking. And, since Universities were invented and have been preserved so that people will have places to do things that take time (like reading, thinking, teaching, etc) bringing this ITRW bullshit into the University is a very bad idea.

In the REAL WORLD you won't have 5 days to solve complicated problems, you will have a career that spans many years to slowly work towards complex positions to complex issues. You will have both your own experience and that of the professional community to draw on as you move at what must seem like an achingly slow pace towards an understanding that is continually eluding you (until you are at least 50 and, more probably, 70 years old). In the interim, you work and think and maybe even teach.

This is a competition that will be won by a mediocre idea that won't really be worth the trouble of tearing apart. But it will be accompanied by some beautiful images. So really, it's a five-day endurance version of a beauty pageant. My congratulations to the winners in the event they survive.