Competition Programs as Articulator of Welfare Goals Concerning Dependent Seniors

Abstract

In Sweden, architecture competitions have defined space for depend-
ent seniors. The concept of homelikeness has been chiselled out as the
key criterion. This study focuses on three municipal competitions that
were organized during the period of 2006 to 2009. The study is centred on
the competition programs, and on the use of this document during the
competition (the consecutive phases of conception and evaluation of
proposals). The purpose is threefold: I) to explain the process of writing
programs that convey welfare goals for eldercare to execute and space
intended for older people to manifest; II) to explore the participating ar-
chitects opinions about, and use of, the programs; and III) to study the
evaluation of the submitted proposals, the formulation of the assess-
ment report and the use of the programs. Seven conclusions are drawn
about competition programs with socio-political goals: a) these are pre-
pared via a consultation process that involves at least three municipal
administrations; b) they are the organizers textual reasoning about the
design task that uses at least three discourses conceptual, ethical or
planning-based discourses; c) the programs generate concepts that the
architects explore, and that the jury members assess; d) they have fore-
seen the jury composition, and the consultation process, and defined
pregnant assessment criteria; e) they have been evaluated by the archi-
tects in the jury in terms of appropriateness to the competition task;
f) they produce few questions among the competing architects; and g)
they generate proposals that can be assessed by use of architectural cri-
tique.