DOCEXDOCE HUNGARY, by Detti Kolossváry
"I have met DOCEXDOCE through EASA (European Architecture Students Assembly) 2018 in Croatia, during the event Nico Rueda told me about the European Competition for Architecture Students. He encouraged me to involve my university in the third edition of DOCEXDOCE. Accordingly, I became the ambassador of Hungary, and the Architecture Faculty of Budapest University of Technology and Economics got part of the event beside 25 other universities all over Europe.
At start I reached out to one of my professors, who is known as a promoter of international competitions. She brought the idea of DOCEXDOCE up on a Departments meeting therefore I could contact the head of the Faculty who stood by the initiative and the professors were supporting all along the organizing period and so on.
Public jury meeting and award ceremony for DOCEXDOCE's Budapest University projects.
In our university there is a project in the 4th year called Complex. At the Department of Public Building Design each semester this course has a middle exercise integrated to the educational schedule which is as the year goes an international concrete competition. Usually the best projects are selected by the professors and afterwards the department submits the works in the given competition financed by the university. During my application interview for the class of Complex the professors got to know the initiative of DOCEXDOCE furthermore they started to enquire about the competition process and system. Later the idea formed of applying for the European competition as the middle task of the course. The structure and the nature of DOCEXDOCE suited the professor’s concept for that reason they decide to make the competition obligatory for the students who take the complex course at the department. We are talking about around 30 students thus we could reach the minimum number of the participants for the contest. Despite all that our aim was to invite as many motivated students as possible to apply for the 12 hours long competition. The interest was extremely high since the Faculty has not got enough initiatives for the students like that. This contest created a studiowork atmosphere which was also a motivation considering the lack of that. Eventually 144 students participated including onsite and online in the third edition of DOCEXDOCE in Hungary.
Since DOCEXDOCE is an international competition among European universities the participants number exceed 2500. In that case it is hard for participants to win an any awards or even simply get feedbacks about their work. With this obstacle I was wondering about setting up a Hungarian jury which motivates the applicants. My professor, Levente Szabó DLA was highly supportive with this organizing process. We requested 3 Hungarian architects to take part of the jury in the person of Katalin Fazekas DLA (Kettőpera Stúdió), Zsolt Zsuffa DLA (Zsuffa és Kalmár Építész Műterem) and Richárd Hőnich DLA (Építész Stúdió). After the competition day the jury assembled and went along all the Hungarian projects. On the announcement of the results they gave feedback in general and to each prize. Read the summaries below. The awards ceremony was followed by an exhibition. Visitors could view the projects for weeks in school.
Students at the exhibition of local projects for DOCEXDOCE.
During the whole organizing process, the professors helped me where it was needed. For instance, the technical details as the wifi accessibility, the room reservation, the advertising, printing or the finance part as well and so on. The competition went on in 2 classrooms in the same time and professors visited the participants during the working process. There is an self-organized student filming group in the university called Képkocka who cares for filming and editing movies about events in connection with the Faculty. I have asked for their help therefore they made videos and interviews for the aftermovie by professional equipment.
In conclusion the DOCEXDOCE competition opened the door to 12 hours studiowork in the university. I am truly grateful for my professor’s assistance and enthusiasm. Similar initiations complement the limited university education and loosen the fix system. Fortunately, more and more projects appear with the same constructive goals. In the end of the competition day a lot of positive feedback was given by the participants like as it was a great experience to take a break from the monotone everyday life in the school and it has given an outlook on the international student’s relation."
Prizes given to the hungarian winning teams.