Weston Williamson, like other architects, established their reputation producing exciting successful competition entries. These, along with a few built small projects, were compiled into an entry for the 1985 RIBA exhibition ‘40 under 40’, and the practice was born. This essay by Merlin Fulcher, writer and architecture critic for the Architects’ Journal was written following a series of conversations with WestonWilliamson+Partners. It is one in a series marking the 30th anniversary of the practice in 2015.
1. The Successful Centre Pompidou competition 1968 marked an exciting new direction in architecture and helped launch the career of Piano & Rogers.
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ompetitions have always been the lifeblood of the architectural profession. From the ancient Acropolis in Athens to the Sydney Opera House, many of the world’s most iconic buildings have owed their influence and fame to the competitive successes of their designers. Due to their enormous expense, contests were traditionally reserved for only the most prestigious – and potentially controversial – commissions, such as cathedrals and state legislatures. Our modern global economy has now, however, brought free and open competition into all spheres of business, from the trading of goods and minerals rights to the supply of specialist services. The result has been the expansion of competitive processes into almost every aspect of architectural business, creating new opportunities and challenges for architects both at home and abroad. The rise of competitions has, over the years, brought out the very best in the profession, but, sadly, sometimes also the very worst, undermining architecture’s perceived value and bringing many other unintended consequences. Like many leading practices, Weston Williamson owed its origins to a string of early successes in competitions. The founding partners – Andrew Weston, Chris Williamson and Steve Humphreys – came together as a team after each winning separate competitions while studying at the Leicester School of Architecture in the late 1970s. Following graduation, the team spent two years working every weekend and evening together in Weston’s attic spare room in Twickenham. With no overheads and no salaries, the trio designed simple house extensions to pay the bills and would ‘go crazy’ spending months on competition entries. “It was a golden age and great fun,” said Humphreys. “We spent more time on competitions back then than we do now. We saw them as big opportunities and we were prepared to survive on very little for the chance to develop our own ideas. It was this perfect blend of confidence and naivety that kept the fledgling practice going,” recalled Weston. “We had no work and no contacts and we thought competitions were our way in.”
Around 18 months after Weston Williamson opened its doors in 1985, the strategy paid off big time when the practice won an £8 million office building for the Port of Tilbury. Although never realised, the early victory encouraged the studio to compete for Venice’s new bus station. Weston Williamson’s ambitious submission caught the attention of Jubilee Line extension mastermind Roland Paoletti, who shortlisted the firm for the new platforms and entrances at London Bridge underground station. Winning this scheme in 1991 kick-started Weston Williamson’s rise to fame in the transport sector, where recent triumphs include being selected to lead architecture on Crossrail 2. It also guaranteed that competitions would remain central to the practice’s ethos for many years to come.
Why Participate in Competitions Generating new ideas remains the outfit’s core reason for regularly participating in competitions. “They keep you current, force you to keep up with your rivals and continue changing what you do,”explained visualisation expert and studio partner Travis Walsh. Taking on new and unusual briefs – such as the Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki – has allowed the studio to explore ideas which fall outside the dayto-day requirements of its existing client base. This in turn has given the company a robust and unconstrained body of work, filled with fresh ideas to impress new clients. “You have to show you know what you are doing because few people will take a leap of faith anymore,” said Walsh. Weston Williamson also enjoys competing on transport competitions in regions like Eastern Europe, where there are fewer codes and requirements and there is more of an emphasis on architecture. Walsh said: “In some ways those competitions are better because you can express yourself more and not worry about the restrictions we have here.” Competitions, therefore, have the dual benefit of keeping the design team mentally stimulated while also demonstrating the studio’s creativity within key sectors and countries earmarked for future expansion.
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2+3. Sketches and models were used on our submission for the Port of Tilbury offices. They show two offset blocks connected by a glass circulation tower, which was intended to evoke the feeling of a ship’s control tower.
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Contests have become a central plank of the company’s ongoing business development strategy for these reasons. This means that – perhaps counterintuitively – seizing the opportunity to generate meaningful new ideas is often more important than winning a commission. “Sometimes it is nice to do a competition that you know isn’t going to get built,” explained Walsh. “It’s a great way to really express your ideas without being hampered by buildability.” Practices that avoid competing because they see no value in losing, Walsh argued, instead risk stagnating and displaying the same images on their websites for years. The publicity generated when competition entries feature in online blogs and magazines – such as Weston Williamson’s micro-apartment design for developer Pocket – is also a major benefit. Furthermore, frequent media exposure of this sort makes the practice more attractive to newly qualified architects seeking creative challenges.
Capturing Young Talent Taking part in high-profile competitions has allowed Weston Williamson to continue to recruit the right level of talent. “We have the top students choosing to come to us and saying they didn’t realise we did this sort of competition work,” said Walsh. Cultivating such awareness among recent graduates is particularly important for Weston Williamson because the innovative architectural elements within the bulk of the studio’s transport sector output are not always immediately apparent. The freedom to explore new ideas and work on competition entries is particularly appealing to newly qualified architects who are typically looking for creative positions. This is why young new recruits usually spend their first six months at the studio working with the competitions team before they progress to live projects. “It’s a great way to get them into the office and allow them to have some fun and pick up the way we do things,” said Weston. Several of the studio’s former year-out students have already harnessed the presentation skills they learnt on contest bids to win major scholarships. Others have returned to work at the practice on weekends and in their holidays to subsidise their remaining studies. “It’s all about finding the talent and nurturing the talent because without that we are not moving forward either,” said Humphreys. Furthermore, it is not only the new recruits who benefit from playing a key role in the competitions team. At the early stages of a new brief, the entire Weston Williamson office is encouraged to pitch in with ideas. “We try to engage the broader team who may not have time to work on the physical submission but can still make a positive contribution to the creative output,” said Humphreys. The process of identifying and entering competitions has therefore become an important part of the practice’s social structure.
4. Our submission for the international competition – an interstellar tracking station – was designed by a team of students in the office led by Partner Travis Walsh. The result was radical and sparked debate among the staff on the future of our planet.
Every Monday the office assembles for a meeting where the latest competition leads are presented by the business development manager. The options are spread out on a table for everyone to see and evaluate. According to Humphreys, the team members then decide which competitions might contribute most to the ‘evolution of ideas’ while being physically possible within the studio’s existing schedule. Discipline and time management are key because the practice must continue to meet its project deadlines. As a rule, the team always plans to finish their submission one week before the deadline, explained Weston, “but sometimes it ends up going in five minutes before the deadline”. Delivering on existing commitments while also having the capacity to win contests is a constant balancing act, but there are often surprises. “‘There is always a debate about how much time should be spent on these competitions; however, some of our best entries are the ones we haven’t spent too much time on. It’s the clarity of the idea that counts, not laborious reworking,” said Williamson.
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Rising Above the Odds Often the odds are against competing, but deploying a tailored strategy for each contest has allowed the practice to reap maximum benefits every time it participates. With open competitions, the practice has tended to focus on generating ideas for itself said Weston, explaining: “We accept the chances of winning are slim so we just design what we think is good and current.” The New England BioLabs masterplan was a classic example. More than 300 firms submitted and Weston Williamson completed its bold entry – featuring an atrium housing a botanical garden – in a single weekend. Its imaginative proposal fortunately saw the practice shortlisted, and, as Williamson explained: “After spending another few months on the project it was eventually built, therefore meaning we won a $40 million project with just one weekend’s work.” The recent contest for a new Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki is a very different example. With more than 1,700 rival submissions, the firm knew it was unlikely to win. Weston, however, commented: “If there’s five competing you try to second guess the judges rather than doing what you want. When there’s hundreds you forget the judges and the brief and do what you want and that’s good as far as we are concerned.”
5. Previous page. This sketch by Steve Humphreys (2001) was instrumental in winning our first international project in Boston. It really hit the spot with the client out of 305 entries. CAD was just beginning to develop, but a 3D freehand sketch was quick and illustrated the concept more strongly.
6. The completed New England Biolabs building was a great success and only possible with the collaboration of local Boston architects Jung Brannen, who navigated the building codes and supervised the construction process.
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7+8. The Taiwan skyscraper competition allowed us to explore tall buildings in a dense urban setting. We followed the brief closely but still pushed the boundaries, proposing open internal gardens at four locations within the building. This was a great benefit to employees and a link with the park to provide a new urban space.
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Over the years, the firm has started to challenge briefs and seek out competitions that offer the most freedom and flexibility. “The contests you definitely don’t do have briefs ten pages thick – they go straight in the bin,” said Weston, adding that the company became more successful when it started disregarding contest briefs altogether. The major turning point, Walsh explained, was a contest for a 400-metretall skyscraper in Taiwan. Weston Williamson followed the brief closely and was shocked when a scheme featuring a series of helium-filled balloons won the commission. “It was a crazy outcome because it seemed to be completely contrary to the primary aim of the competition,” said Humphreys. Even the most well thought out and original proposals now also require eye-catching visuals to succeed. “You cannot downplay the importance of visualisation because at the end of the day it will be a team of judges walking around a room and looking at boards with very little time to make a decision,” said Walsh. Whereas in the past architects could submit a simple freehand sketch, they are now expected to create time-consuming and expensive computergenerated images and 3D animations. In recent years, creating an emotive image to sell a scheme has become at least as important as the functionality of the design itself, Humphreys commented. Sadly, in many cases, the preference for seductive imagery has brought with it potentially catastrophic consequences. The growing power of visualisations also has the potential to jeopardise the importance of ideas within architectural competitions. “Photorealistic renders allow clients to arrive immediately at the finished product without taking part in the journey required to make a design great,” Humphreys commented. “With Helsinki, the client has 1,700 flavours to choose from but no discussion about what the actual possibilities are. The rise of internet shopping could be one reason why competitions are moving towards a ‘product-driven’ outcome”, suggested Humphreys, who argued that many clients now risked missing out on the life of a project ‘from A to Z’. Weston Williamson’s solution has been to create images which indicate roughly where a scheme is heading so the client can complete the design with their own aspirations. “The more specific you make a scheme the more you are focusing on a direction which may be completely wrong,” said Humphreys. “Instead, we are trying to create images with a sense of inclusion.”
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9+10. The Daegu Gosan Public Library competition — South Korea. Our design developed from the concept of a ‘simple’ box, and allowed us to explore the contrast of hard and soft materials with large open public spaces and small quiet study areas.
11+12. The ironmongery company Elementer ran a competition for a door handle to add to their range. Our solution was shortlisted: it offered a range of materials to be specified for the handle grip, which was shaped to fit the human hand. 13. The 1:10 scale model of a section of new platform gives a realistic impression of the integrated design. The cast-iron tunnel lining structure is expressed and largely exposed, with special cast-iron infill panels located at platform level and at ceiling level, where they act as light reflectors. The infill panels have also been developed in perforated form for acoustic control. A central fixing boss is cast into each segment of the tunnel linings and is used to support the central services boom, the signage and other add-on elements such as telephone, litter bins, route maps and seating.
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17. The world-wide Guggenheim Helsinki competition was led by students in the office who enjoyed the process and learnt that you can’t win them all. There were 1700 entries.
Unfortunately, competitions themselves have risked becoming a major force for the devaluation of ideas within architecture. The 1,700 ideas submitted to the Guggenheim Helsinki competition were given away for absolutely nothing in the hope that the client would recognise their potential and pay for one of them. If each team spent around £10,000 on their entry, the total design cost would be up to £17 million, which is a sum probably far higher than the winner will receive in fees. Any book would struggle to present all the submissions together. “It’s a crazy notion but it is all about opportunity and without opportunities your ideas are meaningless,” said Humphreys. “Kept hidden, the ideas have no value because ours is not a private profession.” Employees, however, have to be paid and expensive competitions risk bankrupting firms. The fact that no big-name architects feature in the Guggenheim shortlist has offered a small glimmer of hope. “It’s none of the usual suspects, which is refreshing,” said Walsh. “When you look at the ones that have been picked, some of them are amazing.” The only concern is that with six wildly disparate schemes, will the judges ever succeed in selecting a winner? Weston Williamson was among five winners in a recent ideas contest organised by London micro-apartment developer Pocket. Seeking compact layouts for ‘two bedroom-two person’ apartments, currently omitted from the mayor’s space standards, the competition was an ideal opportunity for the studio to enhance its growing residential portfolio. The practice caught the attention of the judges with an innovative 52m² scheme featuring two entrances, allowing occupants to divide the space more effectively. “It allows shared purchasers to still have their own identity within the space,” explained Humphreys. The practice has already begun applying this winning solution to other high-density residential schemes within its portfolio, such as over site developments. “It’s a really good example of how a competition can help us discover new ideas,” commented Humphreys. “A further benefit has been to raise awareness of the company’s expertise within a sector where its reputation is still developing. Being published in the Architects’ Journal along with the other winners positions us as a leading residential architect, which people didn’t previously always associate us as being,” said Walsh.
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14. The worldwide Guggenheim Helsinki competition was led by students in the office who enjoyed the process and learnt that you can’t win them all. There were 1,700 entries.
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15. In 1991, the house of the future competition in Japan allowed us to explore the use of structural glass as the building envelope and to develop our interest in modular prefabricated buildings.
16. When Urban Splash launched an international competition for new housing on a fantastic site on the River Irwell in Salford, we worked hard to win. The short film we produced helped to show our ideas and commitment to the project.
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Sadly, not all competitions have such happy endings. Weston Williamson was one of 120 studios who entered a RIBA-run competition for a retirement home, which ended in controversy two years ago when it emerged that the winning scheme would not be built. While the brief to create retirement housing for the baby boomer generation was an excellent opportunity to test ideas, the cost of competing for a deadend scheme upset many. “We put in the effort to visit the site and do the research and what happened makes you think – I’m not doing this again,” commented Weston. Prior to this episode, the institute had been seen as a prime portal into the world of competitions. “The expectancy was that a RIBA-run contest would be well managed because they understand the time and effort required for architects to complete their submissions,” said Humphreys. Furthermore, the growing dissatisfaction with competitions does not stop at Portland Place’s door. A recent competition for the ‘Olympicopolis’ quarter on the Olympic Park sparked controversy when it emerged that participating teams required a minimum combined turnover of £25 million. “It should be about architecture, not how much your company earns,” said Walsh. “Architects have to be allowed to compete.” There is also a growing tendency for clients to launch competitions prior to securing funding for their schemes. “Maybe it’s easier to win over a bank manager when you have a big-name architect on your scheme and you can show them all the publicity it has generated,” Walsh added.
Industry Recognition Two years ago, Williamson was asked to utilise these years of experience and become Chair of the RIBA Competition Review Group. Key recommendations from the panel – which was created to stamp out the exploitation of architects across the industry – included a new focus on the value of ideas. “Competitions should stress how a brilliant idea can win just as easily as a fully worked out solution,” said Williamson, adding that judges also needed to realise the true cost of particular designs. “Many competitions where the budget is tight have been won by incredibly elaborate schemes, which cannot be built on cost, so in the end nothing progresses.” Possibly the most crucial reform advocated by the group is for judging panels to include representatives of the actual building users. Despite publication of the RIBA’s ‘gold standard’ for competitions, there is unfortunately still very little to stop unscrupulous clients from abusing architects’ enthusiasm to create free ideas. “Part of the problem is we don’t appreciate the real value of ideas and we give them away too freely” said Williamson.
With so many forces threatening to undermine the competitive process, perhaps the answer is for architects to lead by example. Weston Williamson was one of several architects – including Grimshaw, Norman Foster and Make – to moot speculative proposals for future hub airports in the London region. The studio’s proposal for a fourrunway airport at Luton – served by existing road and rail transport infrastructure – was one of nine proposals in what effectively became an unofficial contest for the job. Although it has yet to be seen which of the ambitious proposals may be adopted, the impact on the airports debate has been phenomenal. Furthermore, it was clear to everybody that architects’ ideas – not politicians’ – were fuelling the discussion. In recent years, the practice has begun creating its own briefs so it can explore and propose the sort of changes it would like to see in the world. “The rewards can be a lot greater because you receive both publicity and the potential for extra work, whereas when winning a competition you often only win prize money,” said Walsh. The practice also initiates its own ideas outside of the competition system. One Friday every month, everyone in the office is invited to pin up ideas to improve city living. From these ‘Frideas’, inspired by mayoral pro-cycling initiatives in Copenhagen and Paris, the firm has begun working on a speculative vision for a series of dedicated cycle and pedestrian routes within the capital. “It would be amazing if London was a cycle-only city,” said Walsh. “If the Paris mayor can do it, why can’t Boris” By creating momentum around an idea, architects save politicians the hard work of winning the public around to new schemes. However revolutionary they may seem though, such ideas – including organising competitions fairly and responsibly – must be tested and shown to work by capable advocates first. This is why the future of architectural competitions could be greater if architects not only create ideas but also become the agents driving those dreams.
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17. Cycling has a strong following in our office, so our proposal to help safety within the city was fun to develop. But there is still more work to do with minimal impact and innovation to protect the city’s cyclists.
18. The Brazil World Cup football stadium would have looked like this. Our submission had a responsive roof which could be opened and closed according to the specific event and the weather.
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Picture Credits: 1. © Stahl Und Form, Steel and Form, Acier Et Forme: Centre National D’art Et De Culture Georges Pompidou 2. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 3. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 4. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 5. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 6. © Richard Mandelkorn 7. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 8. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 9. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 10. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 11. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 12. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 13. © Eamonn O’Mahony 14. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 15. © Eamonn O’Mahony 16. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 17. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 18. © WestonWilliamson+Partners