دکتر مجتبی باقری

Problem statement: 

Judgment and evaluation of architectural designs have been among the challenges that designers and architects deal with. This challenge is more serious at the professional level due to the sensitivity of designs and these scales. In general, the lack of comprehensive and clear criteria for evaluating and judging architectural designs is named as the most substantial reason causing this issue. The intellectual foundations of the study have been shaped based on the following questions: What criteria are used to judge and evaluate architectural designs? Are design providers or participants in governmental organizations satisfied with the top design chosenor is this choice the outcome of the personal interests of the jury, political rents, and popularity of consultant companies or competitors? Finally, is the top design selected based on certain criteria and regulations that are everyone’s favorite? 

The study attempts toidentify the mechanism, criteria, and characteristics of the jury that judges these designs, and finally develop the proposed checklist forjudging and evaluating public building’ design in governmental organizations. 

The datawere obtained from analysis of open and semi-in-depth interviews with architecture experts. This study uses the practical method of “Grounded Theory” in architectural studies to identify the judgment criteria for public buildings’ design in governmental organizations based on the interpretations provided by architecture experts. 

Research findings and categories point to the characteristics of the jurors and their judgment technique. The results show that when professional and competent jurors are employed to judge the architectural designs, the judgment process and its criteria are done accurately with fewer problems. Ultimately, the core category or theme titled “The selected legitimate and competent jury” has been presented in addition to the criteria and conditions involved in the judgment process, as well as the characteristics of the jurors who judge these designs.

Evaluating and judging architectural designs has always been challenging. This challenge exists at all stages and levels of architecture, both in academic and professional communities. Due to the lack of criteria, guidelines or standard and codified regulations for judging and evaluating projects, objections to the results of judging and ultimately confusion of designers and participants is evident. Due to the essential differences between the field of architecture and other disciplines, there is no scientific and codified mechanism for judging and evaluating architectural designs. Judging of projects is generally based on personal tastes, tacit knowledge and previous experience of judges and the expectations and orders of the employer of the project. The present study uses Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate and judge the architectural designs submitted to government agencies. This method, by transforming complex problems into a hierarchy of its constituent factors, achieves the appropriate solution that is most relevant to the objectives. Accordingly, in the first stage, through library studies and preparation of a questionnaire, the criteria presented in the architectural plans in government institutions by experts and experts of the technical office were extracted. Then, through the method of hierarchical analysis, the two criteria are compared and finally the relative weight of each criterion is calculated. And then the final score of each criterion is determined for evaluation and judging. The results show that AHP (hierarchical analysis) technique, due to its simplicity, flexibility and simultaneous application of quantitative and qualitative criteria, can be used in evaluating and judging architectural designs.