An Analytic Approach toward RisksOf the Process of Recent Architectural Competitions in Iran

Not similar to management discipline, it is reallyhard to recognize a body of official knowledge andscience which deals with the fundamental issuesand challenges confronted the architectural design;in spite of the lack of general methodic attitude, theessential forces influencing the architectural designprocess established guidelines and outline plan ofworks such as RIBA1 Outline Plan of work or RIBA Work Stages which describes the key tasks, theAIA2 as the organization in charge of regulation inthe US, the ACE3, the EAAE4, etc. Unfortunatelythere is not such a regulation in Iran to provide aplatform which supports the architectural missionas a social discipline by using a format to generatea foundation toward a standard syntax in the fieldof architectural design process.There have always been attention aboutuncertainty and risk; based on the mentionedbackground, the architectural design project is notrisk-free. Architectural competitions are one of thefields which suffering of risk and its consequences.Time schedule, judgment process, client’srequisition and some other issues, are cases that canlead to risk suffering if they won’t organized in aright way. So participants feel no tension whentaking action in the competition. Absence of asupervision system on how the competitions areheld, is the basic matter. The confronting strategyis the most important part of managing risk. Whilerisks cannot be omitted, successful projects arethose where risks are effectively managed. Thispaper presents some routine risks that may occur onthe process of the architectural design during acompetition. Risk management is thus a notabletool to cope with such substantial risks. Riskmanagement is about thinking ahead and analyzingthe risks and hesitations involved in a project,which is most important part of the qualitymanagement system.The results from this study show a necessity forimprovements regarding risk management inarchitectural design projects in competitive field.

Keywords:

architectural competition , Risk Management , Design process