General Comments2022

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  Hisashi SHIBATA
  Professor, Department of Social Design Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Fukuoka University
  Chairman, Design Award Selection Subcommittee, Landscape and Design Committee

  Axis of Evaluation for Civil Engineering Design
  The first round of document screening was held on July 23, and 23 out of the 30 entries were selected for the second round of screening, which began with an on-site inspection period during which several Screening Committee members visited each work. The second round of judging was held on October 26, and based on the reports of the committee members, about 10 hours of discussion ensued. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to all the applicants, including those who were unfortunately not selected, as well as to the organizations that sponsored the awards.
  　It has been my first year as chairperson of the committee, and I have felt a sense of responsibility for the large number of entries, the diversity of the entries, and the overall high level of the entries from the document screening stage. What sets this award apart from other design awards is that the selection process is based on the “actual observation” of the jury members. This year again, after carefully reading the key points of the entries, the jury visited the actual sites, asked themselves about the various possible evaluation criteria and possibilities, and deliberated on the results and challenges. Civil engineering work is a team effort, with a long period of time until completion and a large scope and scale. Therefore, careful and careful deliberations were made, paying attention to the existence and structure of the people who contributed to the realization of the submitted designs. As a general comment, I would like to report on the evaluation axes that were the main points of contention during the judging.
  　First of all, the evaluation was based on the creativity of the civil engineering design. The judges’ evaluation axis seemed to be based on whether or not the civil engineering design created unprecedented new value and expanded people’s activities while solving the difficult problems of the target site. In particular, this year’s entries were again based on the results of plans and projects that responded to disasters, and the results of civil engineering design aimed at improving the disaster preparedness of disaster-stricken areas and the reconstruction of the region. How was the creativity of civil engineering design proposed and achieved in terms of maintenance that contributes to disaster prevention, as well as the experience of the landscape to be protected and the will to “enrich the lives of people living in the surrounding area more than they did before the disaster”? The discussion focused on the possibilities of civil engineering design in an era of increasingly frequent natural disasters.
  The next point is the evaluation of the "unity" of civil engineering design. This was an important axis of evaluation that could only be discussed after the actual observation of the project. Of course, this is not simply a judgment of the degree of uniformity, such as the uniformity of colors. It was a question of how far the civil engineering design areas to be pursued were integrated and connected to the results, while taking advantage of the topography and local characteristics of the target site. Since the land is contiguous, the question is how to design the various boundaries in order to create unity. Discussions were held on the possibilities of spatial expansion and connections created by civil engineering design, as well as the ripple effects on the surrounding area.
  The final point was the accumulated "respect for time. This has two connotations: one is that of continuous efforts to achieve excellent civil engineering design, and the other is the consideration of the attitude and authenticity of civil engineering design toward things that have been nurtured over a long period of time. The former, needless to say, requires a wide range of coordination and consultation, and I was also able to infer the difficulties and hardships that the designers, engineers, and others involved in the project went through to overcome the hurdles in the process of dialogue. The latter focused on how the climate and remains, which are important for understanding the history of the site, were captured and how they were preserved and utilized in a way that conveys their authentic value through the ingenuity of high-quality and sophisticated civil engineering design.
  Grand Prize.