It has been almost two and a half years since the AIAMB was challenged to create visions for our communities by Congressman Sam Farr. Growing up on the Peninsula, Farr’s perception of architects as the visionaries of our built environment included such luminaries as Will Shaw, Nathanial Owings, Fred Keeble and Bill Concolino. Somehow, since those days, the modern AIAMB architect has become identified with anti-growthers, nimbi’s, and those that view development as a negative factor—the spoilers of our spectacular county!

Concepts is an opportunity to show that architects are qualified, trained and suited to provide visions for the future of our communities. We visualize and articulate the built environment to coexist with the beauty and splendor of our area as no other professionals can. The concept behind Concepts was to bring forward ideas, inventions and visions to stimulate positive and proactive housing solutions for all of our regional communities. Our entire fabric of living—our environment, neighborhoods and ultimately our civilization —are affected by how we address this problem.

Phase 1 of the three phase competition challenged entrants to display any type of housing solution, unconstrained by site or resources. The call went out internationally via www.conceptscompetition.org, and more than 130 entries from 15 countries were submitted. Twenty of these were selected to go forward into Phase 2, where each idea would be matched up with an actual site in Monterey County. The County of Monterey, State Parks and many cities came forward with 33 sites, from which 11 were selected as representative of various housing issues and opportunities.

The Phase 2 jurying and awards reception occurred on May 30–31, 2003, and a Grand Prize winner was selected, along with two merit awards. The Grand Award went to a creative solution for an ‘Infill’ site, one Award of Merit went to an ‘Eco-Village’ concept and the other to a Modular Construction System.

The ultimate goal of AIAMB’s Concepts is to create housing solutions. Therefore, in the third and final phase of Concepts, we consider all the submissions from both Phase 1 and Phase 2 to be winners! Our ideas emerge, creating appropriate solutions so that the best, most suitable visions may become real projects.

In Phase 3, we plan to facilitate discussions between our top leaders in finance, development, planning, government, industry, public and interested contestants. All of the sites submitted, as well as other possible sites, are to be considered as part of the Phase 3 process. Our local jurisdictions are acutely aware of their housing problems, and Concepts will be interfacing with them to develop creative solutions. To help the districts pursue discussions with one or more contestants, each potential site has been assigned a team to facilitate the interaction. In this way, we hope to see appropriate concepts become real projects.

Concepts can make a difference in the design and livability of our communities. As the late Bucky Fuller said, “we need to be doing more and more with less and less to protect our environment and our planet.” Now we have the visions, and we will do it for our communities.