The Architects' Journal
has published an article by Michael Hammond covering events at Black Rock, which makes for very interesting reading...

Between a rock and a hard place

Competitions have always played a significant part in conceptual architecture but a project in Brighton has highlighted weaknesses in the system and prompted Michael Hammond to ask the question, “Is this as good as it gets?”

It’s always a risk. Entering a competition involves a lot of work and mostly with no reward. The decision to enter a particular competition is a constant dilemma. The architect must weigh up the pros and cons, look at the opposition, is it limited or wide open? Am I just making up the numbers, what are the returns? Will the design be passed to another team? and of course the vital question. “Even if I win, will the project go ahead?” So he then has to look into the funding, is it in place? who are the backers?

The ‘Black Rock’ project located on a prominent Brighton seafront site was always going to be controversial, previously a popular leisure facility, Black Rock swimming pool was opened in 1936 comprising a lido and art deco pavilion with bars and restaurants but demolished in 1978 as part of the marina development.

The two acre site has lain dormant until a public consultation in 1999 after which a development brief was prepared in 2001. In November of the same year the authority began marketing the site to potential developers. 600 agents and developers were targeted resulting in 11 serious contenders expressing interest. A competition ensued.

The competition, based on a development brief produced by the land owners, Brighton and Hove City Council incorporated Supplementary Planning Guidance Note (SPG) 5 which it states: “(SPG 5) is one the material considerations that can be taken into account when determining a planning application. It is intended to provide helpful guidance for the developer, consistent with the local plan.” The key development objectives in the brief were: To enhance the tourism and leisure function of Brighton and Hove and its seafront, to provide an economically and environmentally sustainable development, to preserve and enhance the character of the adjacent conservation area and the settings of its listed buildings.

Four suggested uses were put forward,

An activity centre, blading, ice skating, water and extreme sports.

A managed multi purpose/ special events space.

An hotel

Children’s Village/Playground

The eleven entries were finally whittled down to two contenders; local architects RH Partnership with a four star hotel, spa and biome and London based S&P Architects with a leisure facility comprising two ice rinks. It is the diversity of these schemes that should start alarm bells ringing. Black Rock is a strategic seafront location which will essentially form the termination of the Eastern Esplanade.

The problems with such disparate schemes is that the architect has to “sell” the proposition itself as well as come up with an appealing design. “This adds a tremendous burden,” says Andy Francis of RH Partnership, “we have invested some 80 man days in the design side alone, and that doesn’t include pulling together the consortium. “ Its not just our time, we have outside consultants such as Whitby Bird who have carried out an environmental study. That’s a big commitment for a small practice.” Clare Baker of S and P architects said,” Our proposal was very comprehensive, about 250 pages.”

As if that were not enough, hidden in the bowels of the development brief a small statement confirmed that one of the Council’s objectives was to “realise an appropriate receipt from the land.” Francis confirmed, “ It’s a rather unsatisfactory process really, you are not only bidding on design and ideas you are bidding on a figure at the end of the day.” The commercial viability of the proposal clearly will have an effect on the outcome. To add to the general frustration, the Council has highlighted a number of issues that will be taken into account but no guidance as to priority or weighting has been given. “This makes it really difficult to judge where we should be putting our efforts, so you end up spreading your resources across everything.”

Then of course there are the added value elements. The “outside the box” bits as Francis calls them. “ The Council drew a red line around the site and said this is the site we are looking at . This is the site we will assess. However the biodome we are providing is outside the box so if after all the check boxes have been ticked the scores are equal, they will look at the added value items.”

With only one winner, the cumulative abortive work of the other entries represent a significant wasted resource. Multiply this across the other UK competitions and it becomes a national scandal. This level of speculative work ultimately has to be paid for whether in increased prices or more likely reduced margins for the architect. The competition organisers seem oblivious to this, and why shouldn’t they be, with no credible guidelines or incentives? They have their own agendas and aims and the last thing on their list is the welfare of architects.

So what constraints are the organisers under? If the project involves public money, xxx including local authorities and central government then it comes under EU legislation and must be published in the The Official Journal of the European Communities (OJEC). However as in this case, if it’s a privately funded project there are few constraints. The Department of Environment and Department of National Heritage published guidelines in 1996, entitled Architectural Competitions: A handbook for promoters.

The RIBA competitions’ office in Leeds offer an independent and impartial service for clients wishing to use an outside body. They publish a document about their services called Architectural Competitions. However on comparing the two publications it is immediately obvious that there is not even consensus on the types of competition.

However they do share one fundamental question, “Is the competition being held to find a design or designer?” There is clearly a strong lobby in favour of competitive interviews which unlike all other forms of competition allows a client to choose an architect not a design. This process has obvious benefits for the architect in that it reduces speculative work and provides an opportunity to meet with the client and discuss ideas. One downside is that this is by definition restrictive in that it would be impossible to run an open competition on this basis.

After this it becomes “open season” with many variations from an “ideas competition” at one end of the spectrum to a “design and build” at the other.

Clare Wright, has just been appointed head of the new RIBA competitions advisory board. Commenting on the Black Rock scheme she said, “Too often the objectives and details of the competition are not clear or not adhered to. In my view very few clients have any inkling of the commitment and investment architects generally bring to bear in competitions and it is their architectural advisors' role to familiarise them with this. Brighton and Hove is a shocking example of wasted time and effort as the result of a poorly thought through brief.”

However the RIBA competitions office is not without it’s critics, Paul Zara of Conran and Partners, suggested a client used the RIBA competitions office for a project but, “He said they had used them once before and had found them slow and vastly bureaucratic. If clients perceive the RIBA competition office as difficult, then it is preventing the very thing it is meant to encourage.”

Of course it’s not all doom and gloom as many will cite the Heneghan Pen fairy tale story, of a small Dublin practice wining the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) competition against 1557 entries from 57 countries, to argue that the system can work. When asked which competitions they enter, Roisin Heneghan explained, “Where the requirements are not too onerous - for example GEM required 5 A3 boards in the first phase. Competitions with an interesting jury - a successful competition is as much a function of a well chosen jury as the entries received - most competitions will get some interesting entries but it's up to the jury to find the projects.”

As for the Black Rock scheme the jury is out as to whether an ice rink or hotel will win but we may never know what the deciding really factors were behind the Council’s closed doors. What is certain is that the losing party can consign a lot of hard work to the bin and their balance sheet will contain another black hole.

End