20+10+X World Architecture Community Awards 2nd Cycle

The aim of the WA Community Awards is to highlight and publish remarkable projects that might otherwise remain unnoticed by the international public but have the potential to inspire exciting questions about contemporary architectural discourse.

What is distinctive about WA Awards

WA is an “online community” initiated by Suha Özkan and 200+ invited Honorary Members, and a growing number of registered members (2500 in August).

Awarding follows a most democratic procedure where all member’s ratings and the votes of all Honorary Members are effective in the final decisions.

Registrations are completely FREE so that all architects can participate both as candidates and judges.

Eligibility:

Architects from ALL countries can submit ALL of their buildings (realized or not) for the appreciation of the WA Community. Recent projects (not older than 10 years) will have more chances to be shortlisted for the Awards. Students, landscape architects, engineers may also submit for the awards projects they are the author of: we do not check or accredit diplomas.

Projects submitted to the WA Portal between 25 July -24 October 2008 will be considered for the 2nd Cycle. All projects submitted earlier can be reconsidered if their pages are updated with significant new material by their architects.

Criteria for Recognition:

NOVELTY; ORIGINALITY, and CREATIVITY in design that reflect and inspire a commitment to the art of architecture are the major criteria. The WA Portal tries to bridge the gap between theory and practice: thus the architect’s explanations and member’s discussions on submissions will be critical for recognition as much as the design itself.

Timetable:

Deadline for submissions to be evaluated for the 2nd Cycle is October 24, 2008. Please note that early submissions will have more chances to be recognized and move higher in the ranks before the Final Assessment Panel.

In November the shortlisted projects will be online for all members to examine and discuss.

The Panel will complete the voting process, and announce the selected projects during December 2008.

At this last stage, the “Most Mind-provoking +X” projects also will be determined by examining the discussions posted to the pages of the projects.

Submission procedure:

Registration to the WA Portal www.worldarchitecture.org is totally free. Registrants are expected to create their ARCHITECT / OFFICE PAGES (from MY PAGE section) and subsequently many BUILDING PAGES representing their work. For each building 9 images can be uploaded, at least one of them should be an architectural drawing.

Please note that good photographs, a detailed explanatory text and also related links will provide a good presentation for each of your buildings to be considered more seriously.
If you also relate your building to the relevant ISSUE PAGES, this will make the intentions that guided the design more explicit. For guidance during submissions, FAQ on the main menu can be consulted.

Categories:

Choosing the “Building Type” is a standard procedure during submissions to the WA Community Portal. The Final Panel (and members) may choose to award projects of any category without any limitation. Forcing them to choose a certain number for each category appears not to be relevant for our aims.

Assessment and Awarding:

Selection for the Awards will follow two complementary tracks:

Member ratings will determine the 10 top-rated projects of the “Members’ Awards” and also help shaping the shortlist for the Final Assessment Panel.
Votes of the Final Assessment Panel will specify 20 projects from the shortlist following the aim of the awards. Honorary Members (http://www.worldarchitecture.org/community/?users=honorary_letter) of the WA Community who may wish to take part in online voting will constitute the Final Assessment Panel.
Honorary Members of WA Community and other interested members are invited to examine all projects and write about them.

Submitted commentaries will also be examined at a final evaluation to select the “Most Mind-provoking +X” projects.

Eventually, an anthology of theoretical, critical, and literary interpretations will develop for each of the awarded projects which will be published in the “WA Community 20+10+X Awards Book” .

Shortlisting of the Projects:

Submissions that are properly formatted and presented are CITED and selectively shortlisted on the main page by the editorial team considering the rating of the members. Maximum 3 buildings of each architect might be cited and shortlisted, but the editors and the Final Panel will regard the presentation at the ARCHITECT PAGE and other BUILDING PAGES of the architect as a whole.

Shortlisting procedure:

Projects submitted to the WA Community Portal go through a standard process of selection to be included in the “shortlist” that will be examined by panel members to vote for final awards:

a) The editorial team of the portal examines all projects uploaded to the portal and determines those that will be cited on the main page. At this stage the editors only omit those projects that seem not to have the least chance to be considered by the Final Panel -due either to their poor presentation or insignificance-. But all projects (including those that are not cited on the main page) can be viewed from the WORLD ARCHITECTS and WORLD BUILDINGS listings. All Honorary Members will also be able examine them and include to citations at main page those projects that might have been ignored by the editorial team.

b) Architects are advised to enrich their pages with better photographs, new text and links. This will improve the chances in the whole process.

c) Not all citations can make their way up to the shortlist. Ratings and comments by members and editors will influence the distinction of projects. Ratings and compliance of presentations determine the selection for the shortlist. Only some projects by each architect is shortlisted. Editors can also choose some of the underrated projects to include to the final shortlist.

d) Members can rate all projects regardless of the citation procedures. Thus all projects have the chance to receive a “Members’ Award”