The Mondaine clocks at Swiss train stations may be the most widely known travel-related timepiece (and is referred to as ‘the official Swiss Railways (SBB) clock’ even when commercially sold as a wristwatch), but this crown may about to be knocked off.
Network Rail, in conjunction with the Royal institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Design Museum (London), has launched a competition for the design of a timepiece to display and communicate time across the U.K. rail network.
There has been a specific decision by Network Rail to say ‘timepiece’ rather than ‘clocks’, and not just because they are referring to everything from a time-telling object on a wall or on a computer screen. To quote them – “Network Rail is seeking to explore and interrogate how time and the passage of time is best depicted on the UK national railway.”
As they are looking for a unified design for how time is communicated across all their needs, the winner needs to be scalable and adaptable across a wide range of different formats, uses, contexts and settings.
The Design Ideas Competition is open internationally to practitioners within the fields of art, design, engineering, and architecture. Students at (and recent graduates of) higher education institutions who are studying these disciplines are also able to submit entries.
You don’t need to go solo – inter-disciplinary collaboration and collaborations between individuals and organisations are welcome.
The competition will be held over two phases.
Phase One: Submission of initial design concepts. These will be judged anonymously by an Adjudication Panel. Up to five proposals will be selected to proceed to the second phase.
Phase Two: The short-listed entries will be made public and invited to develop their proposals in response to general and proposal-specific feedback on the Phase 1 design submissions and the more detailed technical requirements of Phase 2.
The short-listed competitors will be invited to attend a clarification interview to present their proposals and answer questions from the Evaluation Panel. Each short-listed competitor will receive an honorarium of GBP £7,000 (+VAT) on conclusion of their involvement in the competition.
Post-Competition: This bit is critical to note if you are considering entering the competition – Network Rail say that they anticipate that future development and implementation of the adopted design will be undertaken by Network Rail without further input of the author(s) of the winning design submission. They will pay GBP £35,000 (+VAT) for the purchase and acquisition of all existing and future intellectual property rights in the winning design.
Go to the official website at this link for full details including registration, dates and all documentation outlining eligibility, details, and terms.
[Image credit: Network Rail]
HOROLOGIUM 
Leave a comment