Raking in the Signups (and How Arcbazar works)

On Arcbazar, a designer is awarded points for signing up for a competition, submitting an entry, and the receiving one of the top 3 places (and perhaps honorable mentions). They lose points if they sign up and do not submit. Plus there is the prize money (our stated award pot), split 60% for 1st place, 30% for 2nd, and 10% for 3rd.

We learned in our first experience with Arcbazar in 2013 that a lot more designers will sign up than will submit, so we're not overly excited (ok, so yes we are) that at only 4 days in, we have 12 official sign-ups and an additional 12 folks who have saved our competition. The 12 "savers" may choose to sign up and submit an entry towards the end of the contest or they may just want to watch this play out.

Not only do you, the client, upload surveys and other measurements, you also upload a specification document(s). We tried to make ours as loose as we could, having learned from our first contest that giving the designers as much leeway as you can will yield you more varied results that might offer you very different and creative solutions.

You can also upload images of styles or rooms you like, so that the designer can get a better feel for what will visually appeal to you and craft their entry to draw you to their submission.

Another neat aspect of Arcbazar is the Wall, where the designers (architects and other designer types) ask you questions that either you neglected to address in your specification or they want further guidance. This Wall is public for all of the designers (and everyone else on Arcbazar) to see during the contest.

So far, we have 3 wall questions: one about materials for the exterior and roof, the next about how we envision the pool room (natatorium) interacting with the outdoors, and the third was just crazy (is there a rear set-back line). The first two were great questions, because we didn't really address them in the spec, other than 51% brick or stone (required by deed restrictions). The reason the third question is crazy is if you have ever seen that property, you know just how deep it is - 160 ft on the east and 186 feet on the west. No way should any building structure get anywhere near the rear line!

The breakdown of sign-ups is all over the world so far: Egypt, India, Montenegro, Nigeria, Philippines, Romania, and the USA. Watchers are in Egypt, India, Italy,  Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, and the USA.