Marianne Cadio
This summer semester I had the privilege to work on a competition entry for the Central Glass International Architectural Design Competition based in Tokyo, Japan. I sadly wasn't in Japan itself for the competition, but was able to work on it from Cincinnati where I worked with my old co-op supervisor, and my current professor, Aarati.
My goal for this competition, was of course to get a placement of some sort, but also to get better at understanding how international competitions work and how I should go about them if I plan on doing them in the future, either for work or for my own personal and academic endeavors. In the international architecture world, competitions are crucial to getting work and, particularly for more design-focused architects, to getting started on making their own firm. This is why I found it crucial to do this experience and learn about doing competitions independently.
The final result of my competition entry is visible to the right, we were tasked with designing a toilet/public bathroom that was a signifier of our times. For this I focused on two topics: Public vs. Private and the Globalization of the toilet and the public bathroom model. I emphasized the juxtaposition of public setting and the contrasting private quality of bathroom by creating an exagerrated red wall that both hides the small bathroom and tells any passerby of its existence. And I looked at the topic of globalization by creating a very basic public bathroom model that is repeated in 3 different settings with very little iteration between the 3 designs despite the vastly differing contexts.
Though I don't have any results out for my entry ( I will hopefully be hearing good news about it around the end of September) this definitely taught me about how to work on competition entries on my own schedule, as well as what thought and efforts are needed in order to participate in a competition, despite it's small scale this time. I thoroughly enjoyed the process, and it's emphasis on the conceptual aspect of architecture, which I tend to admire quite a bit, and plan on continuing with international design competitions in order to hone my skills and get more experience for the field, and potentially for starting my own firm.
