[RogerWilco]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

I think you'll have trouble finding people who are capable of making a feasible design that don't have some kind of architecture or engineering background.

Calatrava is both an architect and a structural engineer, and the ability to do both sides of the design work is part of what makes him great.


The AAAs warning didn't stop the vast majority of the entry's to be from an architect, and every serious entry was by an architect. I don't think it would have taken that much effort to draw up a serious proposal. Sure, a couple of days work. If your idea was good, the competition would pay you to refine the design. Not having the resources is a really poor excuse, IMO.

I am sure people are getting sick of me talking about this but I just wanted to address this. The bolded part is what I take issue with. To enter a proper proposal that could win (if it was a sanctioned design competition) and still be built at the end of the day after a commission is awarded takes a tremendous amount of time. Not just two days or so. We are talking about weeks or months with multiple people involved. Something like the Peace Bridge that Calatrava designed would have been in development for months before we saw the very first image. He can do that because he had a contract for about $2.5 million in design services. By the time we saw the first images in the paper I would guess that he rolled through 25% of that in design and engineering analysis so that the image presented was not just an image, he knew by that time it could be built. The one image you see is the result of months of engineering analysis, scrapped designs, and reworking. So we are talking about well over 1/2 million spent on design before you even saw the first image, most likely even more was spent. The deposit alone was most likely 10% of the total fee, so 1/4 million before pen was even put to paper.

I have no problem with that by the way. Just an idea as to the amount of work needed and resources needed to do something new and inventive.



I dropped by the bridge today just to take a look. I think it looks pretty cool. Like I said before I like the simplicity of it. Although it does seem to have a bit of a retro 60s-70s sort of look to it IMHO. The span is much shorter then I had imagined just through the images I have seen.


I would hope people interested in architectural design competitions and direct contract commissions would read the attachment in the above post. It sheds a little light on the requirements and why it is difficult to provide a great submission in a design competition without spending a ton of money in the process. Because if you don't spend that money, like I said before, your submission would really be nothing more than an exercise in self gratification. That is also the reason that allot of architects avoid sanctioned design competitions.

I should have avoided this thread like I did for years. I knew once I posted I would have a hard time stopping.