The Hudson Competition Entry that Opportunity Detroit Banned from Public Viewing

[anon-amos]

An Open Letter to Opportunity Detroit from a Majority Owner of an Architectural Firm

Dear Mr. Gilbert,

There is no question the Hudson’s site is a unique architectural opportunity thick with the prospects of becoming Detroit’s next iconic downtown building. I hope you do not view this entry as an act of cynicism regarding this opportunity, or that I am a non-believer in a stronger Detroit. On the contrary, I like many am spurred on by the kinds of interests you have taken in making Detroit’s downtown safer and more pleasant. So, in these regards, kudos. Keep doing this.

What I am concerned about is your respect for design as a commodity. You’re a businessman. You understand the importance of retaining the value of the services or products you offer. This is how you survive a fluctuating market and how you grow as a business. The success of a business, as you know, is based largely on the value of your product and a market that is willing to pay for it. I mean, this is Econ 101 kind of stuff, right?

Design is my product. It is how I am surviving in this comeback economy, and it is the root of my growing business. I do not question the value of my product, but the willingness for the market to pay for it, as aided by these kinds of design competitions, is diminishing.

This is an ideas-only competition without promise of work. What kind of shit do you think people will turn in? I’ll tell you, it won’t be good shit. It won’t be based off of an intricate understanding of the site, or the culture of the place, or the historic significance of Hudson’s. Hell, most of what you’ll get won’t really even be architecture, but rather attention-grabbing images that are rendered in such a way that the truly important details are never considered. I don’t see how my entry is much different.

On average, an architect will spend 100+ hours on each competition piece. For the typical working professional, this is a substantial amount of time added to his/her likely 60+ hr/wk workload. For what? There will be hundreds of entries. The jurors might spend 20 seconds on each one [[none of them will likely read this). The likelihood of being selected for a prize or receiving recognition of any kind is extremely low, so why do we continue to offer up our ideas – our only valuable trade item! – to be held as intellectual property by whoever decided to host a competition.

I’m not sure how we got to this point in architecture, but I for one would prefer a different future.

Mr. Gilbert, you hold a highly esteemed, historically selective role as architectural patron. You are a high profile example that my clients will look to in order to determine what the architect-client relationship should be. When you undervalue my design commodity, so too will my clients. You say you are for a stronger Detroit, but part of that is to ensuring the value of the creative industry is sustained. To me and the people in my industry, Detroit’s opportunity lies solely in that.

I wish you the best in the future development of the Hudson’s site, as well as with your other downtown buildings, but I want to make one statement to you in this letter:

“AN OPEN-IDEAS COMPETITION IS A SHIT ARCHITECTURAL PROCESS AND I CAN PERSONALLY GUARANTEE YOU WILL SOW ONLY SHIT ARCHITECTURE USING THIS METHOD.”

You can take that to the bank.



Sincerely,

Anonymous Architect

[subsidized]

^^ boom ^^

[rb336]

So I take it your little gem didn't get picked. What a load of sour grapes. Many great, iconic buildings were developed from this method

[Bham1982]

Why does this guy think Gilbert should be obligated to consider his services? Or is this some weird/ironic art school project? Bored Cranbrook or CCS student posting?

[Mind field]

The letter comes off as unprofessional and he sounds bitter.

[Spartan]

While the overall idea of it is correct, whoever created this obviously missed the whole idea of this. The contest wasn't a bid for a project, it was a fun contest to see what kinds of ideas people had out there and get some discussion flowing. Of course they're not going to get a beautiful, perfectly thought out, architectural masterpiece. I'm sure when they actually construct something on the property, a proper architectural process will be followed.

[Jason]

It's easy to hop onto the "our work is valuable, don't work for free" bandwagon but this has absolutely nothing to do with that.


From the perspective of someone entering the competition:

1. Someone is a hobbyist, or maybe a student, and is doing it purely for fun.

2. You're an architect or a firm. In this case, just like for the bagillions of other competitions like this one that are constantly running all around the world [[deathbyarchitecture.com), you decide what the benefit of the competition is [[exposure, morale, keeping skills sharp, fun, whatever) is worth the value of the work in terms of billable hours or however else. If it's not worth it then you don't enter. The pros and cons have been well debated.

From the perspective of Dan Gilbert:

1. You get good PR for yourself.

2. You generate some interest and some civic-minded discussions about Detroit.

But you're not really getting free architectural services. I suppose the architects who are actually hired will be able to look back on the entries for ideas. It might save them some time or it might make their work better than it would have otherwise been but they're not going to reduce their fees over it.


This isn't like the issue of the expectation of being an unpaid intern/slave labor. And it's not like the problem where graphic designers or illustrators have where clients expect endless revisions for free, or they want "the first one to be free and if you're good we'll pay next time" or "do it free it'll be a great opportunity to build your resume" or "you want me to sign a contract?" and all of that kind of stuff.


I do agree that some competition types are invented by the client to greatly benefits themselves at the detriment of the architects. But those kinds of competitions are so rare. Most competitions are paper projects with small rewards like this one was.

[professorscott]

I think of this competition more along the lines of how most government sponsored projects work where a bid process is employed. If you ask any project manager at a large, say, road construction firm, John Carlo for instance, if a big project comes up for bid, the Carlo firm must spend quite a lot of time and money to prepare bid documents, with no certainty of any return on the investment.

So why would anyone put forth such an effort? Because it makes business sense; because a firm decides that, over time, it will succeed in garnering enough business by this process to make it worthwhile to participate. Other companies have a different business model and decide not to participate, but to pursue customers and business by other methods.

The originator of the thread apparently pursues business by a process other than that of bidding, and would have preferred that Mr. Gilbert not oversee a process that obviously favors one sort of designer/architect over another. As such, he is using this web site for precisely its intended purpose: to express an opinion semi-publicly. His detractors are doing precisely the same thing.

I disagree with the original author's conclusion, but appreciate his displeasure. I hope something worthwhile is eventually done with the site, as no doubt it will be; Mr. Gilbert is in no way an ass.

[wolverine]

The letter is a total fake. Anyone in the architecture profession knows some work assigned to employees is done at no cost and billed under "proposal" or general company overhead. If a company wins a project, get's paid for the work..wonderful. Sometimes a paid contract is worked out, sometimes an architecture firm will provide free services. Or in this case....sometimes an owner will make a fun design competition....because it's fun, and open ideas are fun. There were some folks I knew that took the designs waaaaay too seriously. It's just a conceptual exercise. Just because the selected designs were a bit visionary doesn't mean that's what's going to be built. The letter is clearly a fake and a joke.

[ghettopalmetto]

While there has been some thought put into the letter, I'm skeptical that it's from a practicing architect, much less the principal of a firm.

Architectural firms compete for high-profile work all of the time. They usually have to assemble a portfolio, round-up consultants [[like engineers), and provide conceptual renderings--not unlike what this competition sought. A professional services firm knows that they may or may not get the work.

A true design professional also knows that it's not only the IDEA that is his commodity, but its IMPLEMENTATION as well. Any idiot in design school can submit a Frank Gehry-wannabe piece of crap sketch. A professional is required, however, to develop the design, make it constructible, put it on paper, and develop details--with the seal and signature of the Registered Design Professional on each sheet of the construction drawings. THAT is the work product. No respectable architect bills his time for every absurdist idea he might have in the shower or during his commute.

Likewise, the author shows contempt for his professional peers by implying that one of them could "rip-off" his idea and carry it into design development.
Is it tough in the design business these days? More than likely. But the state of architecture has been plummeting for decades. This is not a recent shift in paradigm. I call Shenanigans.

[Jason]

I think of this competition more along the lines of how most government sponsored projects work where a bid process is employed. If you ask any project manager at a large, say, road construction firm, John Carlo for instance, if a big project comes up for bid, the Carlo firm must spend quite a lot of time and money to prepare bid documents, with no certainty of any return on the investment.

So why would anyone put forth such an effort? Because it makes business sense; because a firm decides that, over time, it will succeed in garnering enough business by this process to make it worthwhile to participate. Other companies have a different business model and decide not to participate, but to pursue customers and business by other methods.

Those kinds of competitions exist. They're more common in Europe but don't really happen very often here.

But the thing is, this wasn't that kind of competition. No one was competing for a job and the projects, while most of them were plausible, were understood to be fantasy paper projects. There are a lot of motivations for entering this kind of competition but none of them are about landing a job or money. I wouldn't be surprised if internally Gilbert had decided to specifically not hire any of the entrants because it would look bad.

The normal process for an architecture firm getting hired is either they're hired directly by the client, because client has done research or has personal connections with the architect and already thinks they found the best architect for the job. Or a request for proposal is sent out, and then a bunch of firms will usually put together a book of some kind that shows off previous relevant projects. Putting these together takes time so whenever a firm attempts to get work they're already losing money, so they have to be strategic about it. So there's already a bid process.


The problem with the other kind of competition [[the ones that lead to the job) is that they are a lot more involved and are a lot more expensive to do than an rfp because you're basically designing a building for free in hopes that you'll win and get paid for it after the fact. I personally wouldn't say that it devalues the work but it definitely takes advantage of architects. There are pros and cons to this format but overall they're not very well liked.

But there's also a format where the firms competing [[by invitation only) are compensated. Everybody gets paid to participate and the winner gets the full job.

But like I said those kinds of competitions that lead to work don't happen very often in the US.

[Eber Brock Ward]

The letter comes off as unprofessional and he sounds bitter.

This. It also sounds like an echo of autoworkers complaining about jobs moving to down South or Mexico when they wouldn't give in on the price of their commodity, which is their labor.

I don't doubt, that with crowdsourcing and other things becoming more common, that architecture will take a similar path, though not as stark. While I find it unfortunate, that's how markets work and I guess the lesson to take from his letter is: "Don't go to school for architecture."

[rb336]

I have heard from someone who I trust, that there is some paid work being done to determine the viability of the winning design

[1953]

This is a very dumb post.

[Detroitnerd]

This is a very dumb post.

Oh, god. You guys completely lack a sense of humor! First of all, there is a room full of people looking at poop. POOP! If that doesn't make you laugh, and set the tone for this piece, then you will never, ever recognize satire.

Then again, maybe it's our local billionaire-worship at work again. Somebody asks downtown businessmen for a dollar and he's a nuisance. Mike Ilitch asks for hundreds of millions of dollars and he's a job-creator.

Anyway, perhaps also this thread has attracted architects. The message in this little piece of humor is actually widely circulated among writers, plastic artists, and the fringe performance scene. For instance:

http://shouldiworkforfree.com/

http://jezebel.com/dont-ask-writers-...an-e-513172739

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE

So, you see, there's this kind of groundswell of people who feel they've been burned by the "résumé sweeteners" out there with their offers of work for nothing. And I think they do have a point. It would be one thing to complain about it if the job market weren't so utterly crippled, or if it were the only proposal of its kind. But in a permanently depressed job market in which people are looking for paying work for months and not being able to find it, employers and contractors have used unpaid internships, volunteer work, "helping" and various other sneaky ways to get stuff done for free, often by hard-done-by workers who vainly believe this is going to help them down the road ... well, then it's a little harder to defend this sort of behavior.

So, yeah, this person, who is a little long-winded [[tl;dr) is making a joke that's actually gaining some currency out there. Add in that a billionaire is asking for lots of stuff for free and it makes sense to me. A fed-up person sending a piece of satire into the teeth of the storm? Fine by me. I just thought it a bit too long and not punchy enough. I wish they'd have hired a writer.

[313WX]

So I take it your little gem didn't get picked. What a load of sour grapes.

Hey, Gilbert dished the same thing out. He should naturally expect it in return.

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index....ans_james.html

[hybridy]

i think you forgot the first day of undergrad. the dean said something along these lines, "if you entered architecture school thinking you'll make tons of money please take this opportunity to leave now". i do agree that design fees are consistently being marganilized. we're hovering around 3% fee for service and often spend years/decades & hundreds of thousands chasing projects.

[Jason]

So, you see, there's this kind of groundswell of people who feel they've been burned by the "résumé sweeteners" out there with their offers of work for nothing. And I think they do have a point. It would be one thing to complain about it if the job market weren't so utterly crippled, or if it were the only proposal of its kind. But in a permanently depressed job market in which people are looking for paying work for months and not being able to find it, employers and contractors have used unpaid internships, volunteer work, "helping" and various other sneaky ways to get stuff done for free, often by hard-done-by workers who vainly believe this is going to help them down the road ... well, then it's a little harder to defend this sort of behavior.

That's absolutely true but that issue is not related to this competition. They are not designing a building for free because there is no building being built. They're fantasy projects with no program, no budgets, and are generally vague. The competition serves a different purpose.

As the author makes the point:

"It won’t be based off of an intricate understanding of the site, or the culture of the place, or the historic significance of Hudson’s. Hell, most of what you’ll get won’t really even be architecture, but rather attention-grabbing images that are rendered in such a way that the truly important details are never considered. I don’t see how my entry is much different. "

The entrants didn't perform proper architectural services. They're interesting ideas that aren't followed through or developed into something that could be built.

The designs are generally plausible and within the realm of reality [[although they didn't have to be). The winning entry doesn't have any elevators. The towers are impractically thin. It's mainly an apartment building but the design of the units was not considered. The work that the entrants did is not the work that architecture firms get paid to do.

The work they did is still "architecture" but it's not really the same kind of design work that a firm would do for a real building.

I have heard from someone who I trust, that there is some paid work being done to determine the viability of the winning design

If this is the case then there is indeed a real problem, because that's outright unethical and a big no-no.

[Detroitnerd]

That's absolutely true but that issue is not related to this competition. They are not designing a building for free because there is no building being built. They're fantasy projects with no program, no budgets, and are generally vague. The competition serves a different purpose.

Maybe so. But I'm only trying to explain which nerve it's touching, and why.

Whatever the rules of the competition, though, don't you think there is likely some inferred promise of a feather in one's C.V. cap? [[Furthermore, why anybody in these tough times would want to spend hours on a fantasy project is sort of beyond me.)

[Jason]

I'm not sure. The architects would enjoy winning, but I don't know how often you really see competitions like this put on a cv. A student who won a school competition might put it on, but I don't think a firm would put it on their firm profile unless maybe it was a really high profile competition.

The main practical benefit to winning competitions is that everyone who looks at the entries will see your name, but in reality no one will remember it and most the people looking are architects anyway, and you could do a better job advertising yourself in other ways. The other benefit is that doing a fun imaginative project is good for you/your employees, and that's hard to put a price on.

It seems like whenever the topic is debated among architects, they overwhelmingly think they're not worthwhile to do in professional terms, but are still fun to do now and then anyway. I don't think they're really considered an actual professional activity.


Maybe a good comparison would be a professional artist entering an art competition at like a state fair or something. Their time and expertise isn't being compensated and you don't really get anything worthwhile for winning, but it's still fun to do anyway.

[Detroitnerd]

Thanks for your perspective, Jason. It all rings true to me, but is largely irrelevant to the point underlying the satirist's complaint. Because we're not debating facts but instead we're debating perceptions, I guess.

I'm somewhere in the middle of this, myself. I hire and "employ" interns at work, but then when they do something that's really of consequence, I make sure they're cut a check. I'm sure somebody out there could blast me for seeking free help too ...

[1953]

If 100 people will give away a product or service that you charge for, you should get out of that business.

If, on the other hand, you provide a unique solution to a customer's need, you will get paid handily for it.

1953

[anon-amos]

Oh, god. You guys completely lack a sense of humor! First of all, there is a room full of people looking at poop. POOP! If that doesn't make you laugh, and set the tone for this piece, then you will never, ever recognize satire.

Yes. This is satire. It is meant to be humorous, but also make a point. Inspiration for the formatting and tone of the letter apparently comes from Mr. Gilbert himself. If the "anonymous architect" seems unpolished perhaps this is why.

http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosy...ert-letter.gif

[wolverine]

Oh, god. You guys completely lack a sense of humor! First of all, there is a room full of people looking at poop. POOP! If that doesn't make you laugh, and set the tone for this piece, then you will never, ever recognize satire.

Then again, maybe it's our local billionaire-worship at work again. Somebody asks downtown businessmen for a dollar and he's a nuisance. Mike Ilitch asks for hundreds of millions of dollars and he's a job-creator.

Anyway, perhaps also this thread has attracted architects. The message in this little piece of humor is actually widely circulated among writers, plastic artists, and the fringe performance scene. For instance:

http://shouldiworkforfree.com/

http://jezebel.com/dont-ask-writers-...an-e-513172739

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE

So, you see, there's this kind of groundswell of people who feel they've been burned by the "résumé sweeteners" out there with their offers of work for nothing. And I think they do have a point. It would be one thing to complain about it if the job market weren't so utterly crippled, or if it were the only proposal of its kind. But in a permanently depressed job market in which people are looking for paying work for months and not being able to find it, employers and contractors have used unpaid internships, volunteer work, "helping" and various other sneaky ways to get stuff done for free, often by hard-done-by workers who vainly believe this is going to help them down the road ... well, then it's a little harder to defend this sort of behavior.

So, yeah, this person, who is a little long-winded [[tl;dr) is making a joke that's actually gaining some currency out there. Add in that a billionaire is asking for lots of stuff for free and it makes sense to me. A fed-up person sending a piece of satire into the teeth of the storm? Fine by me. I just thought it a bit too long and not punchy enough. I wish they'd have hired a writer.

I think 95% of the people here know it's a joke. But please don't add any background justification. There's nothing wrong with unpaid competitions. Imagine if municipalities paid architects for conceptual design work as part of an RFP. It would be disastrous with all sorts of corruption and unfair partnerships.

If people have gripes working for free, then dump that career and make it a hobby. Experience and good marketing will land you a project that is billable.

While it's a joke, it's somewhat sophomoric....you're correct, it needed a writer. But I sense some undertones of discontent.

[anon-amos]

Another comment chain on Archinect:

http://archinect.com/forum/thread/78...lay-in-detroit