If you would like to get the most out of this resource it is necessary to read the full review, otherwise you will become frustrated with the difficulty involved in navigating a site in a different language. The two main features that I use on this website are the slide show on the main page, and the cerca or search feature.  The slide show on the main page is absolutely awesome, and presents what appears to be an endless supply of inspiring architectural design imagery.  The slide show interface is very easy to use and allows you to view many projects in a short amount of time.  Unfortunately like many sites most of the projects featured are unbuilt projects, but they do have a large supply of built architectural imagery. The ratio of unbuilt to built is roughly 60/40. If you find a project that you like in the slide show, click on the link to navigate to more images of the project along with information and a link to the complete listing of the architect’s portfolio as documented on the site.  Once you have discovered a project or architect that interests you I suggest going to that architect’s website for further research, unless you are fluent in Italian.

The cerca feature is the second great feature of the site because the website is essentially a huge database of architectural projects!  Unlike Great Buildings Online the information supplied by Europaconcorsi is of high quality and is actually useful.  If you know of a building or are trying to find information on an architect odds are that this site has something about the architect or building documented.  Tatiana Bilbao is one of my favorite unknown architects from Mexico.  Their work is simply amazing, but their site does not contain a portfolio of  their projects.  If you go to the Europaconcorsi site and type in Tatiana Bilbao in the cerca box, seven projects with images and descriptions are listed!

If I were fluent in Italian perhaps I would be able to appreciate the full value of the Europaconcorsi site, but until then I can only imagine that this site would destroy mainstream magazine sites like Architectural Record or Metropolis Magazine.  Europaconcorsi is a site that you should definitely check out when you are searching for inspiration whenever you are about to start a design project.  While writing this article I have come to the conclusion that the beautiful thing about architecture and design, is that quality design has no boundaries.  Dispite language, cultural or physical barriers, architecture and design can move the hearts of men and women, regardless of their differences.

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“when was the last time you got punched by design? we are inundated by images everyday which wear us down with their hopeless nostalgia repackaged as new.  weary of quirk and whimsy but still in need of a laugh and a stiff drink, we need to confront that which claims to be contemporary in an attempt to define the present.  there are no more kings.  we are looking to get knocked in the teeth a bit by the unexpected, the beautiful, and the present.”

Seriously, who doesn’t want to be punched in the face by design?  That would make a great bumper sticker or tattoo.  In the beginning it was easy to fall in love with suckerPUNCH for its simplicity in content and its beautiful design.  The content is displayed in a clean, minimal graphic format with large images.  Unfortunately the postings at suckerPUNCH are brief, and always leave you wanting more, but the advantage is that you can visit this blog and be introduced to a large number of innovative designers in a short amount of time.

It appears that the site is currently suffering from growing pains and has become more cluttered with advertisements, losing some of its charm.  The message is becoming muddled as well with the addition of five new sections:  ONtheRADAR, NEWSfromNOWHERE, NOTHINGeverHAPPENS, competitions and advertising.  I personally think that architectural blogs and competitions are going to be a new trend that you see, and why not?  Writers and editors of architectural blogs seem to be the people that are most in touch with what is going on in design.  Competitions hosted by architectural blogs will also provide more opportunity and freedoms for designers to develop creative solutions to problems that otherwise go unaddressed.  Advertising is of course a necessary evil, but the editors of suckerPUNCH have really whored their selves out, hopefully they scale the advertisements back, just a bit.  The other sections added: ONtheRADAR, NEWSfromNOWHERE and NOTHINGeverHAPPENS are absolutely useless.  I visit this site for one reason and one reason only, to be punched in the face by design.  Not to mention that the syntax with which the categories use, does not even make sense.  The logo suckerPUNCH is great, it’s simple and beautiful, but why apply this to everything? The only thing that is clear about the site’s recent update is a need for money, not that there is anything wrong with that, but it will be interesting to see how one of the architectural communities most exciting blogs develops and grows during the next year.

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