ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITION PAGES
One of the easiest ways to find inspiration for your own project presentations, particularly during school, is to look at what other people are doing in competitions. There are a number of amazing competition sites out there that put many or all of their participant’s projects up on their websites. I have highlighted three here that I found particularly useful for layouts, but also for rendering and general drawing inspiration. (Click the titles to visit the websites!)
GUGGENHEIM HELSINKI DESIGN COMPETITION
This website is quite specific to this particular design competition but is a good example of how you can utilize ‘real’ architecture competitions a a source of inspiration. Though this one does not have layouts like many of the others, there is a HUGE number of entries (1700!) that you can look through. Each has two images of the project (the Guggenheim Museum design) and a project description. For the most part the rendering quality is fairly high, and some of the designs are pretty neat. I would use this to see commonalities between firms and how they set up their renders, how many people they’ve added, lighting, etc. I would also take a look at some of the project descriptions to see how firms are talking about their projects to get better insight into how I might talk about my own work.
ARCH MEDIUM
I love this website! It has a number of different links to various competitions, and the quality of the layouts and rendering found in these competitions is amazing. My particular favorite is the OBA link which was a competition for an arctic observatory. If you want to see how people represent snow and ice in their architectural drawings and renders, this is the site to go to. There is a range of projects too, so you can see how someone lays out a single board and fits all their information onto it, or how someone lays out many boards.
Okay so good ol’ pinterest. I just stumbled upon this (I am a little slow), and I wish I had found it before now. I bet most students have found it… but I am posting it anyways! Sites like pinterest are really fascinating to me, it is great to have everything right in front of you – its a good way to compare and determine what kind of stylistic choices you like in layouts too!
BONUS ROUND: EVOLO
I always look at eVolo for inspiration – mainly because the skyscrapers produced in the competition are so thoughtful – but also because the presentations are spectacular. See last year’s winner below – not super tall like some of them, but like I said – super thoughtful!
Thanks!
THE SUN NEVER KNEW 