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Saturday, May 30, 2009

Judge: Cathy Hawley

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.

www.rhmarchitects.com

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Secret hidden section for C of H eyes only

Ok guys we have hit a slight hitch in the development and exhibition of the project - namely that The Lighthouse (the people hosting the exhibition and the projects only funders) have gone into administration and that the AJ were going to arrange an exhibition in London but haven't managed to do so and therefore, at the moment, there is no exhibition.

We need to come up with some alternative ideas for promoting all you excellent work - so I thought it would be a good idea to set up a secret section on the blog where we can all discuss what comes next. So what do you all think?

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Questions

Hello all, thanks for the messages so far, amazing how many people have contacted us and the competition hasn't fully launched yet.
The people that have been in touch have asked lots of really useful questions so we are either going to create an FAQ section or update the main submission download to include them, so that everyone gets the benefit.

Must admit we are already excited by some of the ideas people have mentioned in their emails - sounds like we will have some cracking entries. Can't wait to see them begin to roll in - the judges are going to have a tough time.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Spot the Difference: Alistair Darling

Spot the Difference: Michael Martin

CONTACT

For any further information or questions please contact :

info@commonofhouses.co.uk


For more of our projects, please visit www.holeinmypocket.com

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EXPENSES

The prize for the competition was slightly unusual in that we are asked the entrants to choose their own prize.

As part of their submission, the entrants were asked include a faked Expense claim/ receipt for the item they wanted to win and then we had to try and make it come true. Though we asked the entrants to bear in mind that there may need to be a great deal of artistic license used in the representation of your prize. Eg: If you put in a claim that you wanted your moat cleaned, then we might just pop round and clean out your bath.
The Winners Collective Architecture thankfully asked for a small prize - the cost of presenting their entries to Parliament. Thankfully for our purse strings the people who asked for flights to OZ didn't win.

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BRIEF

[The CoH competition is now closed.]

For an archive copy of the full brief and submission guidelines please click on the link below or right click and choose "save target as . . ." to save a copy to your computer

Please click here to download a full submission pack.

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ABOUT

[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 Home
This 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 Home
This 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.

COMPETITION

A 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.

PRIZES
Each 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.

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