The Design Brief is the proposed outcome of my research. The research far outweighs what is suitable to present within a brief, but the brief should contain enough information to help guide a design within a competition environment, whilst leaving enough open for interpretation from each designer. There are a number of brief examples that can be found; unfortunately, many of the formal seaside competitions for seaside shelters are no longer available or only available to participants, however other briefs are available and can be found online. I’ve considered three different types of brief;
Some briefs include many pages of information such as one created by Sam Causer calling for people “Imagining a new future for Margate’s seaside shelters” which includes a section of context, detailing the historic context of Margate, an introduction to the Margate coastal park, details on the creative ideas for the area, their aspirations for the project and further information on fees and expectations for the winners moving forward. Other competition briefs are created in a poster format such as ACA’s International Design Competition where they use a more graphically attractive layout with a column for the brief and a column for submission details. The brief is considerably less specific, however the competition is looking for more of a conceptual design as opposed to a more site specific design.
A third competition brief example is one created during the pandemic lockdowns as a student exercise by the Arcasia Committee on Architectural Education. The most simple of the three, this one is a more of a generic brief based upon the town in which the students live, and gives a simple brief with judging criteria and submission requirements.
With my brief I’m hoping to find a middle ground between these three: I’d like to use the poster format in order to allow me to interpret the information I’ve found and reduce it into a succinct brief, but the brief will be site specific in terms of town and seaside location. Details such as cost and project moving beyond a competition winner are not available, with the proposal being hypothetical at the moment, although having the potential to become a reality.
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