ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes reflections on the potentialities and analytical perspectives of qualitative judgement in architectural competitions for housing projects. The purpose is to validate analytical tools originally proposed by the Máster Laboratorio de la vivienda del siglo XXI (2011) research team, from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (2011), named “Inhabiting the Present”, widely diffused and debated, in this case adapted to the Brazilian context. It is a set of analytical tools based on the idea of housing as a complex and multidisciplinary subject, in which there converge urban, social, technological and environmental issues. In this work, the analytical procedure is focused on the two first concepts proposed: Society and City. Two competition winning housing proposals were selected as case studies, located in the Sol Nascente area, in the Metropolitan Region of Brasília (Federal District, Brazil). Preliminary analysis suggests that housing proposals from architectural competitions would seem to be important tools for the promotion of social housing quality in Brazil, since they result from the balance of reflexive and critical capabilities of those who organise, judge and design. On the other hand, if such a balance is not reached, the result could be the undermining of qualitative judgement and architectural competitions as democratic tools.
