[The Competition is now closed]
The MPs' expense fiasco continues to roll on, with MPs dropping like overfed flies and each party trying to outdo each other in the drastic reforms that they advise are required to fix the “broken” system. It is most interesting to see the number of MP’s who are really angry about how terrible the current system is, I wonder when they realised it was so bad?
Continuously we hear the lines “I have done nothing wrong. Everything I have done, was within the rules.” The problem with that argument is that it was the MPs themselves that wrote those rules in the first place and its MPs who are planning on rewriting them. Obviously not all MPs are fiddling and flipping but how do we sort it all out, so that the majority of honest ones don't get tarred by the same brush?
We think its time that the whole situation was approached from a completely new angle. What if the people asked to solve the second home problem were not MPs? What if they were designers, artists and architects? What if instead of a legal solution, there was a creative one?
We put our heads together, had a little think and the obvious solution popped into our heads. Instead of each MP having to go out and buy two homes, one in London for their Westminster duties and one in their Constituency for their day to day work we could remove the whole problem with the State providing them with accommodation - no second home allowance required, no temptation to purchase duck islands, instead its all owned by us and the MPs can just simply get on with their jobs, everyone’s a winner.
BRIEF
This is where we need you, the creative minds of the UK (and elsewhere), we believe that there are two types of home needed for MP’s and we want you to design them.
Type 1: The Constituency HomeThis is a home located in each constituency that works like a Church Manse. When an MP is elected they are given this home to live in rent free. However it remains the property of the tax payer and once an MP is unelected, they simply move out. MPs can choose to live elsewhere if they so wish but that is at their own expense.
Exactly how this home looks, what its function is and how it is designed is where you come in. Maybe it could be some kind of modernist multi-functional office/ surgery and living quarters or maybe it could be a palatial mansion house with duck islands, moats and servants wings or maybe its just a shop doorway and a cardboard box. Any and all ideas are welcome.
Type 2: The Westminster HomeThis will be a solution to mass housing all the ministers when they are actually on duty at Westminster. MPs can choose to stay elsewhere if they wish but that is at their own expense.
Again this is where we need the creative UK minds to step in and propose how this could function and how it will look. Maybe, it could be a giant hotel, an army barracks deep under Westminster or a cruise ship moored on the Thames. Again any and all ideas, no matter how unorthodox, are welcome.
COMPETITIONA panel of judges will review all the entries and will choose their favourite for a prize. It will be at the judges discretion to award more than one prize and to award any funding to develop any ideas to a more detailed stage. Kieran Long and Ken Livingstone are the first two judges on board - for the full list click
here.
PRIZESEach participant is asked to submit a faked expense form. If your design is successful, we will try to provide you with what ever is on your receipt - there obviously may have to be some artistic license used in the representation of your prize.
The winners and selected others will be on display at
The Lighthouse, Scotland's Centre for Architecture, Design and the City.
SUBMISSION
We encourage designs for either or both types of homes. For full submission details please see the DOWNLOADS page.
Labels: About
Cathy Hawley is a practice partner at Riches Hawley Mikhail Architects. She was an Associate with Muf Architecture/ art for a number of years and has experience of urban planning, landscape and streetscape design. She won the Rome Scholarship in Architecture and Design in 2001 and has taught and lectured extensively at architecture schools inculding North London, the AA, Chelsea School of Art and The University of Bath.
