The Council of the Wielkopolska Regional Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland and the Board of the Poznan branch of the Association of Polish Architects, in response to the study competition for the design of the modernization of the Margonin market, announced by the Municipality of Margonin on July 16, have sent a letter to the Mayor of Margonin, Janusz Piechocki, in which they make their comments on the unfavorable provisions of the regulations.
As the authors of the letter emphasize, the competition procedure raises concerns and doubts, and the current provisions of the regulations will not guarantee valuable studies, which in effect means a waste of public funds. Among the reservations are the composition of the jury and the symbolic amount of awards.
Below we publish the content of the letter
Dear Mr. Mayor,
The Council of the Wielkopolska Regional Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland and the Board of the Association of Polish Architects Poznań Branch are pleased that the Margonin City Hall is looking for an idea to develop its public space through a competition.
However, after reading the Rules and Regulations of the competition entitled "Competition for the development of an architectural concept for the modernization of the Margonin Market Square", which was announced on July 16, 2024, we are forced to express our deep concern about the organizational details of this competition:
- The regulations do not indicate the persons serving as members of the jury (commission). In such a situation, how can conflicts of interest arising from the participation in the competition of persons related to the members of the jury be avoided?
- The composition of the jury is always important for the competitors. Depending on its competence and composition, they make decisions about taking part in the proceedings.
- The competition task is a typically architectural one, and among the 14 (!) members of the court there is not a single architect.
- The organizer's intention is not to attract a future designer through a competition, but to take over the copyright to the winning competition work, and then to seek a contractor through a price tender (as one might guess). In this context, the prizes provided are less than symbolic. They are not even able to cover the cost of making the expected visualizations.
- The organizer expects to send a record of the competition work In dwg/dxf files, which is unheard of in competitions, while not specifying the dimensions, layout and number of expected boards.
We guess that the Regulations were not prepared by people experienced in this matter. We regret to say that we cannot expect any experienced team to participate in the competition. This will lead to an unnecessary waste of time on the part of the organizer and, in the finale, a waste of public funds. It should be borne in mind that a lot of applications to participate in the competition does not mean that you will receive a lot of competition entries. We have observed this many times.
In the context of these facts, we take the liberty to suggest that you immediately cancel the competition and use, for example, the help of the SARP when organizing it, or at least use the model competition regulations recommended by the President of the Public Procurement Office, available on the website of the Public Procurement Office. The new regulations should indicate the persons of the judges. A minimum of 1/3 of them should be architects, including the jury chairman. The regulations should precisely define the competition task, the method of graphic application, the number and size of the boards, the volume of the description, etc.
The amount of the competition prizes should be proportional to the value of the works planned on their basis, and if it is not the intention of the organizer to entrust further design work to the winner of the competition, then in addition the prizes should be increased to cover the cost of the transferred copyrights.
If this is the case, then we will be able, as the Wielkopolska OIA RP and SARP Poznań Branch, to encourage our members to participate in such a competition, and you will receive many valuable studies.
At present, we are compelled to inform our members of the irregularities associated with this competition, warn them of the unfavorable provisions of its Regulations, and urge them to study them carefully before deciding to participate in this troubling and questionable procedure.
Yours sincerely,
Wojciech Krawczuk
President of the Board of the Association of Polish Architects, Poznań Branch
Bartosz Jarosz
President of the Council of the Wielkopolska Regional Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland
