As part of our methodological process, we engaged a cohort of architects who had previously contributed to design competitions—both as participants and/or as jurors—for their perspectives on the contemporary competition paradigm. The questions, while not going into specifics, sought to understand the multifaceted dimensions of the design competitions. Read the article ‘Who really wins? — A Critical Look into Design Competitions in India’, authored by Anusha Sridhar, here.
We ask Suditya Sinha, Founding Partner and Architect at SpaceMatters.
How have competitions shaped your practice so far or opened new directions in your work?
We started our firm by winning a national open competition. I was 26 then, i’m 45 now. While the project stands unbuilt it gave direction to our practice. We saw for ourselves that new ideas could actually bring about a change and be a disruption to the mundane and standard, bring innovation and declare a new possibility through design.
As a practice we learnt of new collaborations to engage with new ideas. The possibility of remediating a site through appropriate landscaping and integrating old with the new, the ideas of memory, past and the present.
The process of dialogue with stakeholders holders and the ability to take design to the stakeholders became integral to our process. To ask questions beyond the brief and challenge the status quo has given our practice the design thinking abilities which integrate and collaborate from the word go.
We continue to participate in invited as well as open competitions, as each competition enriches our ability to process new ideas and generate new designs. Giving us and our teams the ability to grow in thought, building our database of design possibilities.
What systemic flaws do you think are limiting the progress of competitions in India?
I can think of several, but I’ll keep this short.
- Lack of architectural coherence and absence of a desire to be innovative and cutting-edge.
- Corruption and control by agencies and practitioners alike. Collusion to tamper with results and a general desire. The government procedure of procuring designs through a tender process, where designs are sought for free of cost. Design procurement needs to change.
- Reducing architecture design to a facade, or an image missing the entire benefit of a design process, which can alter the existing spatial and social culture. Good architecture changes thoughts and perceptions; it has value beyond the real estate gains.
- Lack of time given to design and the desire to tender for execution. A well-thought-out design leaves fewer possibilities for corruption.
- Acceptance and promotion of mediocrity
- Absence of enforcement of copyright laws towards design, making design a cheap labour product. Thereby preventing competition from taking.
Do you think competitions really empower and impact emerging practices in India?
Open competitions can, if the fees and remunerations for conceptualising an idea is the need of the hour.
If you could change one thing about how competitions are run in India, what would it be?
Make the competitions paid and transparent, have most public projects granted through a robust competition process rather than a tender process. This will change our cities and alter the skyline in a positive way. It will reduce corruption. It’s important that these are run in a free and fair manner, with little or no role of influencing parties like the COA; COA should have a role in setting guidelines and not in judging results.
