Architecturepublic: Multiplayer Interactive Architecture Competitions

An examination of the state of architectural competition within the Web 2.0 realm will involve the already historical review of the spatial co-evolution of both the constructed and digitized environment, and will also complement the inquiry of digital technologies for architectural participation. The first architectural competition in the Second Life, Wikitecture 2.0 (Designing the Architecture of Architectural Design Collaboration), and The Archinect School Blog Project will be analysed as case studies. Their modes of design, interaction, and publication lead to new incubators of ideas and techniques on the architectural production as well as on the collective management of the First and Second milieus for urban re-invention. Thus, to what extent will Open Source initiatives be successful in participatory design? And, what other modes of collaboration could best achieve improvements in the constructed environment? By tracing new architectural challenges through those examples, the design of the architectural project will depend upon the design of its artificial architectural assembly, in the same way that the design of the city will gravitate around a specific transmission of that cybernetic parliament of architecture.