Architectural Competition and BIM

New technological and societal developments have entailed changes within the building sector; including building trades becomingacademically based, and the introduction of new building materials, new concepts and ICT-based designsand communication, traditional methods and organizations are being put under pressure. Thus, the two central actors involved inarchitectural competitions, architects and building clients, are continually influenced by such developments, interpreting and adaptingto changes according to their interests and horizons. During a project reviewing Nordic research literature on architecturalcompetitions, a series of interviews was conducted with building clients as well as architects, focusing on the impact of the above-mentioned changes within the building sector on architectural competitions as an institution. In the interviews, ICT and notleast BIM was a recurring theme that both parties saw as having a positive impact on competitions. But when looking closely into the answers, these revealed diverse understandings of how and why the impact of BIM on competitions could be said to be positive. The paper sheds light on the interaction between the actors (building clients, architects and client consultants) and the applied technologies (competition forms, ICT tools, directives) in architectural competitions in a theoretical actor-network perspective. The diverging understandings of the role of BIM are demonstrating one of many negotiations in progress in the network of architectural competitions. BIM is transformed from an inscription device visually representing the competition proposals to form an actant that challenges the very concept of architectural competition.

The objective of the paper is to contribute to theunderstanding of BIM used in the kind of network that an architectural competition constitutes, and thereby give professionalactors a possibility to act on the basis of a wider understanding of interrelations mediated by BIM.