Type Private Founded December, 2010 Key people Imdat As, Founder | Industry Architectural Design Area served Worldwide | |
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Headquarters Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA | ||
Arcbazar (pronounced "Arch Bazaar") is the first and largest global marketplace for crowdsourcing architecture projects. Arcbazar disrupts traditional methods of design acquisition with an online marketplace platform, enabling designers to compete and collaborate on design contests; and, customers to receive multiple design solutions in an online environment at a lower cost and faster delivery speed. Homeowners, small businesses, start-ups, public agencies who need architectural, interior or landscape design solutions post their design challenge, award and timeframe they need the designs to be delivered. Once posted, designers from all around the world can submit their design concepts and drawings. Clients choose from among the design submissions, these are not project bids or proposals but actual drawings of the design.
Contents
History
Arcbazar was founded in December 2010 by Imdat As. Arcbazar launched its online marketplace publicly in July 2011. Arcbazar was an MIT VMS company and received their first investment from Mike Dornbrook and Tim Curran. Following early investors were Harvard_Business_School angels Joe Caruso and Preston Ford, and Boston Techstars Director Semyon_dukach. In 2011, Jon Hirschtick - founder of Solidworks, Daniel Schodek - Professor of Architectural Technology at the Harvard_Graduate_School_of_Design, William Porter - Emeritus Professor at MIT_architecture, Sarah Goldhagen - Architecture Critic at The_New_Republic, and, in 2013, Takehiko Nagakura - Professor at MIT_architecture, joined the Board of Advisors. Arcbazar is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Structure
More than 10,000 architectural, interior and landscape designers from around the world work on Arcbazar. Arcbazar is an innovative model of design acquisition that disrupts traditional marketplaces, where clients select from among architectural designs submitted by multiple designers. Clients receive on average 9.5 designs per project. Hundreds of home-owners, small businesses and public agencies from around the globe have leveraged Arcbazar's designer community to acquire architectural, landscape and interior design solutions for their design challenges.
Arcbazar facilitates the competition process, related file transfers, payment options, and public and private communications between designers and clients. Designers have a public profile page and can participate in crowdsourced design contests and upload their design work. The Arcbazar marketplace offers communication channels, design evaluation and ranking processes, and charts to evaluate the performance of designers.
Awards
One of Entrepreneur_(magazine)'s Annual 100 Most Brilliant Companies in 2014 MassChallenge Finalist of 2012, Boston Shark Tank Top 6 finalists, and a top five finalist by Mass High Tech in 2012.
Criticism
Arcbazar has been heavily criticized by professional media, and in contrast warmly welcomed by popular media. Dwell (magazine), one of the top architecture and home magazines, called Arcbazar "the worst thing to happen to architecture since the internet started." Debates among architectural bloggers worldwide followed. Merlin Fulcher at the Architects' Journal a professional journal wrote: "Architecture crowd-sourcing website criticized: Architects have slammed a threatening new crowd-sourcing website in the US which promises to reduce clients' costs." Whereas popular media welcomed this innovation in design acquisition. Marie Szaniszlo from the Boston Herald called the crowdsourcing platform a first-of-its-kind in “Designers, clients forge ties on web.”, and Eric Blatterberg in 2011 in crowdsourcing.org welcomed the launch of Arcbazar in his interview in “Architecture for the crowd by the crowd.”