Housing Bank Headquarters Project:

Architectural Design Competition for the Housing Bank New Headquarters Project in Amman - Jordan.

The Client: The Housing bank for Trade and Investment - Amman, Jordan

Client Objectives:

The Housing Bank for Trade and Finance (HBTF) wishes to build a new Headquarters on an owned prime site, 9241 m2, in Shmeissani, Amman. The building would:

    1.  Create and reflect a distinguished image of the HBTF to its customers, visitors, staff and the general public.
    2.  Accommodate all the Bank departments, functions, committees, training and its executive management.
    3.  Develop a flagship that respond to modern technology in similar buildings, new Banking operations and
         technology.

The Process:

1. Pre-qualifications of International A/E Firms:

Projacs completed a prequalification procedure aiming at selecting 4 to 5 international A/Es to participate in a limited design competition. The procedure included soliciting interest of 12 international A/E firms. Subsequently, a prequalification questionnaire was sent to 6 A/E firms (NBBJ, Gensler, HOK, WZMH, SOM & WATG) who expressed interest in the project. Following the analysis of the prequalification documents submitted by the 6 A/E firms, it was concluded that all above firms have sufficient resources and capabilities to participate in the concept design competition. A detailed A/E Prequalification Report was issued to the Bank at the end of the prequalification process.

2. Preparation of RFP:

A Request for Proposal (RFP) including the proposed new headquarters building space program and the Bank's objectives and requirements was prepared by Projacs during the same period and submitted to HBTF for approval.

Following the Bank's approval, the RFP was sent to the six (6) qualified A/E firms and a two months time period was set for the A/Es to submit their proposal's.

3. Evaluation of the Submitted Proposals:

Only 3 of the 6 A/E firms submitted concept design proposals in response to the RFP sent to them on the designated submittal date (Gensler, WZMH and NBBJ). Projacs evaluated the submitted proposals in terms of their compliance with the RFP requirement and the set evaluation criteria, and conducted a complete analysis of the submitted proposals.

A complete evaluation report was then concluded and submitted to the Client.

The Design Competition Conclusion:

The Client did not accept any of the three submitted proposals. However, The Bank accepted Projacs suggestion to select one of the A/E firms who presented the most creative designs during the competition phase and request him to submit more concept designs, considering the Bank's new requirements, until a concept is approved.

Lessons Learned:

1. Most reputable international A/E firms refrain from participating in a design competition unless their direct costs are fully covered by the Client, which is a very costly endeavor. This fact has reduced the number of proposals submitted for the Client's review and evaluation and deprived him from receiving proposals from other highly reputable firms such as SOM, KPF, and the signature architects.

2. A direct dialogue between the Client, and the A/E firms could not be established during the design competition period. Thus, the Client's new requirements and ideas could not be transmitted to the A/Es participating in the competition and resulted in the Client failure to approve any submitted concept design.