Design Competitions - Procedural Innovations

Design competitions are a key element in Swiss building history and culture: about 200 regular design competitions and a large number of mostly private procedures with a competitive char-acter are realised every year. However, it seems increasingly difficult to convince public and es-pecially private constructors/investors to realise design competitions using the regular proce-dures.

While some argue that the culture of the planning competition and building quality are at stake, others state that today’s regulations are too rigid, that they are not suitable for private investors, and that they don’t pinpoint specific solutions. The project focusses on the emerging field of research on design competition procedure. It will review procedural solutions across Europe with regard to potential process innovations in Switzerland.