10 Years of Design Competitions: Are design competitions still the best way of commissioning public ARCHITECTURE?

SPACE: The operational framework for design competitions has been in place since 1995, but since 2013 it has become much more complex. Let’s take a look at the changes and achievements that have been made by design competitions over the past decade.

Lim Yookyoung (Lim): In 2013, the Act On The Promotion Of Building Service Industry was amended to prioritise the use of competition methods for orders above the notified amount (approximately 200 million KRW). In 2019, an amendment to the enforcement decree expanded the scope of the projects requiring a competition process to design fees of over 100 million KRW, which was implemented in early 2020. The total number of design competitions held during the 10-year period from 2013 to 2023 was approximately 6,000, but the number of design competitions since 2020 has totalled more than 1,000 per year. The number of design competitions has increased simply because the standard design fee for compulsory design competitions has been lowered.

Kim Jeongim (Kim): In the past, employees could not even think of starting their own practices unless they had a robust network and good connections in the field, but now if you win third or fourth place in a small-scale public buildings design competition one can be awarded about 3 million KRW. So, competitions have gradually become a springboard to establish new independent offices. Design competitions clearly have an impact on architects setting up their own practices.

Cho Yoonhee (Cho): I opened my office in 2016, and I think I’m of the generation that benefited from the evolution of design competitions, which began in 2013 and has continued maturing over the past three or four years. When I came to Korea from the U.S., I was working as a public architect for the Seoul Metropolitan Government, so I was able to participate in invited competitions for small-scale public buildings, even though I did not have any record of practice. In the early days, after I opened my office, I built my portfolio by surviving on competition selections and receiving lecture fees from schools. I think what my generation has gained from the current competition system is a public-facing identity. While established architects after successfully completing private projects tended to work on public projects with the approach ‘I want to give back and perform a good deed’, we began our practices with works of public architecture. That is why whether we are working on private or public projects, we understand that all of them are informed by a sense of public need.

Yoon Seunghyun (Yoon): The competition by invitation system for works of public architecture started in Seoul, but unfortunately it did not last long because it was caught up in a bias scandal which was pointed out in a national audit. Local governments were disappointed to see the system go: they had seen its potential and witnessed what passionate architects could do. Inspired by the good public buildings in Yeongju City, the neighbouring Yecheon City once commissioned the Korea Architects Institute (KAI) to hold a competition. After the competition, however, they could no longer tolerate the winning architect because he refused to listen to them, unlike the previous person who had dutifully followed their instructions. It ended badly, but a few years later Yecheon City asked KAI to run it again. This was more positive thanks to the accumulation of experience in building public buildings and seeing the results. Architecture has a long cycle. Even small-scale buildings take two to three years to build, and the probability of completing a good building is low. It takes several success stories to set a precedent, and it has been 10 years now. We have gone through about three cycles of small-scale projects, but I think we have achieved a breakthrough in awareness and are beginning to see systemic change. 

Lim: It is very meaningful that we have hosted about 6,000 design competitions since 2013, and we now have ten years of experience in building the results. This is significant not only for architects but also for the commissioning bodies. In the interviews with the 30 architects, when asked how they were able to achieve positive results, they mentioned the effort and trust accorded them by the commissioning body. This was because they have gained experience and developed an awareness of what good public buildings are. There is also a lot of ongoing discussion about how the present system can be improved. The public building management system was introduced to compensate for the fact that the continuity of the person in charge cannot be guaranteed, largely due to rotation within the administrative institution, and the review of pre-construction costs was also based on past experience. 

Cho: I have had many opportunities to work on public architecture, but, as a less experienced architect, I have also had many raw experiences with the systems that build public architecture. It has been difficult to deal with administrative bodies, such as assistant directors who do not respect architecture, without the protection of architectural associations, organisations, and networks. On the positive side, it has been a process of growing into a good architect—that said, many people give up on the way to becoming a good architect. While fairness in the selection process of entries is an important point of discussion, there is still an absence of discussion around about how best to protect architects and their design entries once they have been selected. The current public architecture system saps too much energy from individual architects and obstacles cannot be overcome even if they try. This is where governing bodies in wider society can step in and help.

Yoon: In fact, the more serious problem in the public architecture system is the stage that comes post-competition. There are hundreds of barriers to finalising a design, construction and moving in, and even an excellent architect cannot overcome many of them, so it is important to reduce the risks in this process. This cannot be done alone: someone has to help. This can only be done by setting up a more detailed and sensitive system for the stages following competition. It is important to establish in collaboration with government officials what is wrong with the current process.

Kim: The worst working situation for an architect is encountering a negative client on a private project, and the best situation is to meet a good client on a private project. A public project is in an environment that is neither here nor there. I think it would be nice to have a clearer sense of aims when sharing thoughts for public work. 

Yoon: That was why implementation of public building planning became mandatory. But that is not enough. You need expertise to hold the direction of the work. But there is also a fundamental limitation in terms of manpower because if there are 1,000 competitions in a year, there must be at least 1,000 specialists. This has to be solved within the administrative system, not by private experts. The public building management system is for the 10% of projects, those that are deemed particularly important, regardless of size, so we need a system that is workable for the remaining 90% of projects. A system like a separate board of arbitration could be proposed. If a decision is not reached because a member of the deliberation asks for an unusual change and the architect is not accepted, he can ask for a re-deliberation to the board of arbitration.

Kim: We need a net-like system to avoid obstacles at every step of the process. Personally, I think the system is only a minimum safety device, and you can only get good results within the same system if you are lucky enough to meet good people.

Cho: I suggested that some kind of system should be established after winning, but, the more I think about it, the less I trust the system. As Kim Jeongim said, when the devices that save us become systems, they work even by luck. In a public project, there was much conflict between us and the city architect, even though the system of putting in place a city architect was established to help us. Even if the system is created with good intentions, the fate of the architect depends on who is appointed to the position. The Korean system basically does not trust people. Comparing practice in the U.S. and Korea, it seems that the Korean system does not give architects autonomy as professionals. When I experience the deliberation and approval processes that accompany designing, I cannot help but feel that I am being treated as if I have done something wrong or I am about to do something wrong.

Yoon: We still need a system. But we need a system that is complex and elaborate, not just detailed. Without the Barrier Free (BF) certification system, we would not have had the opportunity to think about what people with disabilities face in spaces. There should be a system for accommodating people with disabilities, but the problem is that BF ‘certification’ has set out these standards. The moment you measure and quantify it, while embellishing it as a convenient system for administration, the essence of the system disappears.

SPACE: In the execution phase following selection, one often encounters problems such as frequent design changes as well as the Implementation of Design Intentions System.

Kim: The design changes can be made, but they should be adequately compensated. I consider post-approval requests as design changes, but different architects have different criteria for what constitutes a design change, so we need to define the term.

Yoon: There are no criteria for the design changes in the stated fee for architectural design. The same applies to standard contracts. In the case of Ullim Plaza in Deungchon-dong, where the design fee was 2 billion KRW, it was specified that the cost would be settled if the gross floor area increased by more than 10%, but the gross floor area was increased to 13% by changing the parking lot. However, as there was no clear standard for payment, they determined the price for the changes in their own way and ended up paying 30 million KRW. Although the term design change appears in the The Act On Contracts To Which The State Is A Party, it has been applied to design changes during ongoing construction, so it is difficult to apply it to architectural design. Also, if changes are made even when the area remains the same, it is necessary to think of a set of circumstances in which changes can be made by reducing the area.

Cho: The fee is an issue, but there is also a difference in the way we think about public architecture. The commissioning body sees itself as the owner of the building, so if I have designed it in red, they think it is only natural to ask me to change it to their favourite blue, and they think it is hard work to ask for such a change. I have to convince them that I am not designing a single house for them to live in!

Lim: Architecture, especially public architecture, is the result of a very complex production process, but the lines of responsibility are blurred. Even in the case of design changes, there are different versions of the same story from the assistant directors, deputy directors, and the mayor, so the design keeps changing. The system should be worked out to ensure proper responsibility and compensation. It is necessary to put pressure on those involved in the project to agree on the design before the design competition is announced. If there is a criteria for the fee for design changes, the competition will be well planned in advance.

Yoon: In the end, architecture is a matter of how long it takes, how much it costs, and who does it. Public architecture is a matter of all three. The timeframe is often tied to the political calendar of the head of the local government, the fee is quantified and standardised from the budget five to seven years ago, and the architect is not allowed to lead the project. Bukchon Hong-Hyun had a total project cost of 1.2 billion KRW, but it was ordered for 1 billion KRW. The remaining 200 million KRW was left over for moving in and interior design. When we were about to start building the framework, the director in charge was worried about the cost of the interior design, so I told him that if I was given the authority to spend 200 million KRW, I would make sure that it was finished. In other words, I was given an extra preliminary budget of 20% of the 1 billion KRW, which meant that, speaking plainly, I could afford to demolish or extend the building if there were any defects. One of the reasons it is difficult to produce good quality public buildings is because of the many variables, but the reserve fund was able to overcome this. From the point of view of a public authorities, it is not easy to be flexible with the budget, but given the physiology of architecture, the preliminary budget is an important support.

Cho: I’ve been involved in the review of state-owned property buildings, which include buildings such as courthouses and police stations. In the case of state-owned property, the budgets are often smaller than the construction costs of other public buildings, which are already underfunded. One of the buildings I visited had a lobby with decorative tiles, despite a budget of billions of KRW. Most of the architects who won the competition had to design the exterior first because the bird’s-eye view and the actual building had to be the same, so they could not invest in the interior design for lack of money. All the jury members said that they should give more money to construction, but the government department that allocates the budget said that it would be a waste of money because the buildings were still being built well with the allocated budget.

Yoon: When we finish a design and pull out the details, it is not uncommon for the cost to be 130 to 140% of the standard construction cost, and in such cases we remove the finish because we cannot reduce the structural arrangement or the size of the structure to reduce the construction cost. Over the years, various energy design standards have been tightened, and the design standards for structural, fire and BF have also been tightened, so the cost of doing so has increased significantly. However, the tightened standards require a rigorous certification process that cannot be skipped. For these reasons, cheaper finishing materials are chosen to reduce construction costs.

Lim: By analysing the construction costs of actual projects, we can find examples of how much higher the costs incurred were due to introducing additional floor space, or the details that were implemented, even if the gross floor area remained the same. We can then use these examples to build a basis for increasing the budget. For the outcomes that cost more, you can add precedent cases, such as actual user satisfaction or durability. The Ministry of Economy and Finance has been doing this for some time. There is evidence, so we need to keep adding experiences and cases to institutionalise it.

Kim: For example, if the Dream Classroom project needed a higher budget to achieve a better result, it could be put on the agenda of a deliberation committee of senior architects. The Office of Education had a preliminary budget. I think it was a good idea because it was easier to pass the inspection if the need was registered as part of these deliberations. In the case of the negotiated contract, it was also easy to use the difference in the winning bid for construction costs because we had a trusting relationship with the government officials.

Yoon: Architects are at the centre of private architecture. The client and the contractor implement something through the architect, and all the stories and content come together through the architect. In public architecture, on the other hand, the architect is far from the centre. There is a constant division of roles, such as ‘you handle the architecture, you handle the electricity.’ The exclusion of architects from the execution phase lowers the quality of public architecture. In an attempt to solve this problem, the Implementation of Design Intentions System was established to allow architects to participate in the construction process, but this system also ended up being a form of blaming the architect, and there is no reward such as cost, and no decision-making authority. If the construction project manager does not agree with the architect’s proposal, the project cannot proceed. It’s not just a question of expressing the design intent in words, but how to manage the designer’s decision-making authority in a series of construction processes.

Kim: If you want to hold the architect accountable, you have to pay him for his role. It is difficult for an architect to be a professional construction supervisor, so there should be a fee for collaboration. There are many architects who suffer from the attitude that construction supervisors are paid much more, and they often take the attitude that most of the work should just be done in a way so that it implements the design intent.

Yoon: Architecture is not a finished product. It is always on a new path, and it is virtually impossible to complete it with 100% safety and quality. Society makes demands that do not match the nature of architecture. Unlike architecture, a car is a manufactured product, but accidents happen, and, when they do, the designer isn’t held responsible. I’m not saying that architects are not responsible, I’m saying that they do their best, but unless they are a god, things can go wrong. That is why insurance must be compulsory.

Cho: Because major accidents happen from time to time, instead of creating an insurance scheme for architects that costs society money, it is like asking individual architects to pay for things as they happen. 99% of the time it does not happen, so when it does happen you say to the individual ‘you’re immoral, you’re the problem.’ Architects are always exposed to danger. But even after 20 years of practice, I have come to realise that buildings are not perfect, they are results that can fall short despite the best efforts of the people involved, and I do not think the general public can understand that logic. One architect told me he could not sleep well as the number of buildings he designed increased.

Kim: When I work on architectural projects, I always unconsciously think about the risks of regulations and defects, so I work with great tension, but when I work on interior design, I feel free to design boldly. I also thought that the reason why there are not as many different design attempts as in foreign public buildings is because society puts too much responsibility on the group of architects.

SPACE: Competition methods have also diversified, such as limited, invited, design proposal. 

Kim: Nowadays, the competition is so fierce, with about 200 teams applying for a single design competition, so we need a way to simplify the process. For instance, we could accept only simple ideas for the first phase. Usually, we ask for two A1 panels and 20 pages of A3 reports, and if you use about three people from your office for two months, that means investing about 20 million KRW in a single competition. Even if there are 200 submissions and only 70 of them actually participate, the total cost for the office to participate in the competition is still too high. Design competitions are 100% in favour of the commissioning body and the commissioning body often use the so-called phrase ‘box office hits’, and these box office hits are the result of many architects and young employees putting in enormous efforts.

Yoon: There is already a format called the simplified competition, which only requires three to four pages of documents. Government officials are driven by the system, so if there is no precedent, they will not even try to initiate it. That is why they do not use the simplified competition system, and that is why organisations like the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport need to promote why it is being introduced and what its benefits are. The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education is also in the process of reducing the design fee to around 100 million KRW and holding a bid instead of a simplified competition. This is the easiest way to shorten the project’s process. Another way to prevent overheated competition is to review portfolios.

Kim: What about rising architects who do not have a portfolio?

Yoon: This does not mean that we should run every competition the same way. You can choose a method that suits the characteristics of the competition. In France, for example, they base invitations to competitions on age bracket. There are three age groups: established architects over 50, mid-career architects in their 40s, and young architects in their 20s and 30s. If one only invites young architects, one might be worried about their lack of experience, but let’s say Cho Yoonhee wins OMA. Then you have an excuse to believe in her abilities. It would be convenient for the commissioning body to consider different methods if there were a compilation of different competition methods. However, from the commissioning body’s point of view, they have to meet the criteria of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Operation Guidelines for Architectural Design Competitions, so there is a limit to opting for different competition methods.

Lim: It depends on the type of project. In the case of remodelling projects, they can be given as a negotiated contract to architects who have worked together before, while projects that require participation even from the planning phase for a long period of time can be held as a design proposal competition to select a designer rather than a design submission, because no project plan is required. There are previous cases which have been completed, but commissioning bodies are still afraid to try, so it seems necessary to share these earlier examples.  

Kim: In the case of the Pottery History Culture Room of the Yanggu Porcelain Museum, Lee Jinoh (principal, THE SAAI) was in charge of the first, second, and third renovations under a negotiated contract. The director of the museum at the time said that he would take full responsibility if there were any problems with the inspection, so the project was able to proceed. If there is a good reason and it is agreed that there is an optimal way to achieve a good result, the system should be supported so that the method can be used.

Cho: There was a recent design competition that wished to entrust the project to a renowned architect, but because of procedural issues, it was announced in such a way that a particular office could apply. I think there was a lot of talk about how unfair that was. But if you think about why that competition had to be held in such a restricted way, you can see that even if our society wants to entrust great architects with designing public buildings there is no institutional way to support that. We are now obsessed with the principle of achieving fairness, putting everyone on the same level, without valuing the achievements or expertise of individuals. It is a sobering thought, but there is no reason for so-called renowned and busy architects to enter a design competition for a small-scale public building in a small town. In this situation, diversifying the design competition method, such as portfolio review, may improve the quality of small-scale public buildings. Of course, there may be various side effects and controversies experienced the process, but the most important thing is that the system moves in the direction of improving the quality of public buildings.

Yoon: Why don’t we just entrust the 500-pyeong (1,652m2) projects to senior architects? For example, it makes sense to preserve a public building designed by Joh Sungyong (principal, johsungyong architect office/ubac), who created his work based on his proven experience and knowledge. Another option would be for Seoul Metropolitan Government to select an architect of the year and assign public projects to the winner. Hanm Insun (professor, Hanyang University) opened his own office at the age of 29, and he quickly rose to prominence at a young age, winning the Seoul architecture award in the 1990s. He says that when he was a young architect, if you won an architecture prize, you were entrusted with a single public project. This system did not last long because of the Contract With Local Government Act, which went through an authoritative interpretation by the Seoul Metropolitan Government by its lawyers.

Kim: In fact, overheated competition is connected to the jury issue. If the juries are ill equipped for the role or biased, we tend not to apply to the competition. When choosing which competitions to enter, we also look at the composition of the juries and the amount of work required to submit an entry.

Yoon: In Paju City, which is considered to be a representative local government for its reforms to the public architecture system, the average competition ratio is 27 to 1. In contrast, what would be the competition ratio for the competition held by the Public Procurement? If we could find out, there must be some implications to see. The solution to overheated competition is simple: create more positive competition. Nowadays, there are probably less than 100 projects that architects think of worth working on, and if there are 1,000, it can spread naturally.

Lim: In terms of quantity, if there are 1,000 competitions in a year, you need at least 5,000 jury members. The question is, who are these 5,000 people going to be? If there are about 70 schools of architecture in the country, with about 10 professors, that’s 700 people at the most.

Cho: So, we have to reduce the number of design competitions. Isn’t that a loss both from an operational point of view and from a participatory point of view?

Yoon: It’s clear that it’s important to diversify the way projects are commissioned. And, for it to be fair, we need to increase the professional standard of the jury members. One way to increase the professionalism of the jury is to include practising architects, not only professors, in the jury.

Kim: In the second round of reviews for competition, there will be a presentation of the five entries selected in the first round. In this case, the judging body will inevitably be drawn to the architects who seem to be able to work hard on site and produce good results.

Yoon: I can’t say that there is anything wrong with the method of evaluating based on presentation, because it presupposes the intention to look at the architect’s overall ability, including the content of the material and the ability to present it. Of course, we should not be deceived by the architect’s great record of practice.

SPACE: We would like to explore different methodological approaches to producing public buildings. As I said, there are ways of running competitions for different projects in a format that suits their nature, but competitions may not be the only answer.  

Kim: Unlike a competition, a negotiated contract is a way for government officials to actively seek out the right architect, so trust is established between them and the architect. 

Yoon: Other architects might wonder why Kim Jeongim is the only one doing the work when I can do it just as well.  

Cho: Isn’t that sufficient to get a good result? The reason why architects do public work is to create good public buildings so that citizens can make use of them and to have a better quality of life. I think it’s time to ask why the issue of fairness is discussed more than professionalism.

Yoon: If the individual commissioning a project entrusts a design to a trusted architect and the result is not good, what would be the first problem to be addressed? The work performed under a negotiated contract is also a work of architecture, and there is a risk of producing unpredictable results. Most negotiated contracts are in the range of 20 million KRW in design fees, because it is assumed that for 20 million KRW they will not do anything for their own benefit. I also think that the scope of the negotiated contracts should be expanded, but the commissioning body also needs a safety net. No other country in the world has as many competitions as we do. I think it is a transitional period, and the reason it had to be created is because when the price bidding went crazy, we had to find an alternative somehow. So, the turn-keys are gone and price bidding has been diluted. Now it is time to think about the more robust distribution of public work.

Lim: In order to set a precedent for more varied competition methods, the Architecture & Urban Research Institute (auri) handled the limited competition for the senior welfare center (refer to p. 97), the limited and design proposal competition for the welfare centre for the disabled in Yeongju City in 2013. We also prepared and promoted the manual for the design proposal competition. As for negotiated contracts, it is still possible to use them in cases where the Enforcement Decrees of the Act On Contracts To Which The State Is A Party or Contract With Local Government Act requires the skills or construction methods of a particular person. However, the use of negotiated contracts is likely to be very limited, especially as they require the design of an elaborate system. Therefore, I think we will have to introduce a competition method that is suited the individual characteristics of the projects.

Cho: To be honest, I’m sceptical about entering design competitions these days. I think architecture is a lengthy process where you step on 100 landmines from the beginning to the end, but design competitions judge everything from the drawings at the very beginning. I’m actually very much against simplified competitions. I do not see how you can decide who is going to build a building on the basis of a few documents. Instead of putting individual architects on a pedestal to be constantly tested, we need a system that helps them to follow the design process faithfully. I think that if we distribute public works one by one, 

we might get better public buildings because we can think about how to design a building that will actually be built in the time we spend making drawings for the design competition.

Yoon: Twenty to thirty years ago, when the post office ordered a building, they held a competition for the A, B, C and D areas together. The competition was held with A as the site, and the first, second, third and fourth places were awarded, then they were distributed in order of size. Nowadays, HanaBank’s design competition for a kindergarten uses this method and asks the first-place winner to choose the desired project he or she would like to undertake the most. It is a way of reducing social costs and avoiding the winner-takes-it-all system. In fact, the post office orders three to four projects at the same time, so this method is feasible, but projects ordered by local governments have different purposes and execution periods, so it is more difficult. At the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, similar school canteen expansion projects keep coming up, so I think it can be applied here.

You can see more information on the SPACE No. November (2023).