Building Companies in Design Built Competition aiming at circularity

Paper in proceeding, 2023

While the research of architectural competitions is rich, there is less focus on other frequent participants in competitions: Building contractors, project developers and real estate companies. This is the research gap this paper address. Moreover, project competitions are probably confounded with the more profiled architects’ competitions. Here the focus is on competitions about the right to build on a real estate owned by a municipality. We wonder who are the actors participating in such competitions, what is their aim, what experiences do they get and do their participation strengthen sustainable and circular solutions? Using institutional change as theoretical frame we analyse 10 companies participating in three project /design build competitions in Sweden. Interviews and document analysis was used. It is remarkable that most participating building contractors, project developers and real estate companies are small local companies, which draw on their knowledge about the sites. The municipalities try to obtain circular and sustainable solutions, but get relatively rudimentary proposals, resonating with the participating companies that are also critical, even if the jury judge winning proposals having high quality. The implication of this research could be to develop national guidelines and organized exchange of experiences.