1. ArchDaily
  2. Competitions

Competitions: The Latest Architecture and News

Insect-Wing-Inspired Design Wins Moscow Circus School Competition

The team of architects Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan, from Iran and Germany, respectively, have won first prize in the competition for the design of the Moscow Circus School launched by the Architectural Competition Concours d’Architecture (AC-CA).

The winning proposal, entitled Elytra, is an “eye-catching, cutting-edge, [and] unconventional” design that will tower over Moscow’s Tverskoy District, an area which features a burgeoning artistic scene.

Inspired by the forewings of insects—called elytra—the project opens upwards as a protective shell, and will feature both public and private space.

Insect-Wing-Inspired Design Wins Moscow Circus School Competition  - Image 1 of 4Insect-Wing-Inspired Design Wins Moscow Circus School Competition  - Image 2 of 4Insect-Wing-Inspired Design Wins Moscow Circus School Competition  - Image 3 of 4Insect-Wing-Inspired Design Wins Moscow Circus School Competition  - Image 4 of 4Insect-Wing-Inspired Design Wins Moscow Circus School Competition  - More Images+ 7

Iceland Trekking Cabins Competition Winners Announced

Architecture competition organizer Bee Breeders has announced the winners of the international Iceland Trekking Cabins competition, which called for entries to design a cabin with provision for enclosure, place, and social collectivity. As a structure for nomads and backpackers, Iceland Trekking Cabins are associated with cultural folklore and exist within the context of fjords, lava fields, glaciers, mountains, and the respective trekking ethos.

The competition furthermore sought projects that are “a supple and dexterous yet protected architecture, sensitive to the landscape though guarded against its severity, accommodating for the community, but in the company of strangers.”

The winners of the Iceland Trekking Cabins Competition are:

Iceland Trekking Cabins Competition Winners Announced - Image 1 of 4Iceland Trekking Cabins Competition Winners Announced - Image 2 of 4Iceland Trekking Cabins Competition Winners Announced - Image 3 of 4Iceland Trekking Cabins Competition Winners Announced - Image 4 of 4Iceland Trekking Cabins Competition Winners Announced - More Images+ 32

Clark Nexsen Wins Activate Urban Housing Design Competition With a Food-centered Vision

Clark Nexsen has won the international Activate Urban Housing Design Competition with its proposal for an urban dwelling on South Mint Street in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. The design, entitled Mint, focuses on connectivity and neighborhood and includes residential, retail, and open green spaces.

Conceived as a catalyst for a culinary district, Mint aims to create a new urban living and working space, in which the connectivity of food-centered entrepreneurial enterprises fosters a sense of community.

Buckminster Fuller Institute Announces the 2016 Fuller Challenge Finalists

The Buckminster Fuller Institute has announced six finalists for the 2016 Fuller Challenge, a competition now in its ninth cycle. The Fuller Challenge called for submissions from all fields that address humanity’s most pressing problems, and will award $100,000 to one submission that “presents integrated strategies deeply informed by an understanding of a whole system context.”

The 2016 Fuller Challenge finalists are:

SIA-Getz Architecture Prize - Call For Submissions

The SIA-Getz Architecture Prize for Emergent Architecture in Asia honours, biennially, an architect who contributes to emergent architecture in Asia. Launched by the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) and Getz Bros. & Co. (Singapore) in 2005, the prize is in its sixth edition this year.

In the last three decades, Asia has been experiencing an overwhelming rate of development. This has left an impact on the international architecture scene. It is therefore appropriate to recognize and promote emergent Asian architects - architects who produce an exemplary quality of works while responding innovatively to the swift changes in our society, culture and

Winners of Timber in the City: Urban Habitats Student Competition Announced

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) has announced the winners of the Timber in the City: Urban Habitats Competition, a student competition exploring wood as an innovative building material. Out of more than 850 architectural student entries, three winners have been selected, along with two honorable mentions, with prizes totaling $40,000.

The competition focused on a site in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and asked for designs for inhabitation, repose, recreation, and local small-scale commercial exchange, all while embracing the possibilities of wood and a variety of wood technologies.

Today, timber is being used in new, innovative ways to help address the economic and environmental challenges of the build environment,” said Cees de Jager, executive director of BSLC. “This competition brought to life the way the design community is recognizing the benefits of wood–from reduced economic and environmental impact to enhanced aesthetic value and structural performance–to design buildings and communities of the future.

The winners of the Timber in the City: Urban Habitats Competition are:

Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects' Sawtooth Design Wins Finsbury Leisure Centre Competition

The Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) Competitions division and Islington Council have announced that Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects has been selected as the winners of a design competition for the new Finsbury Leisure Centre at St Luke's Area in South Islington, London. The winning proposal, chosen from a shortlist featuring 5 top architects including Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Grimshaw Architects, will reinvigorate the site with new council homes, improved public space and a new civic building that will house recreation, childcare, healthcare and energy facilities all under one roof.

Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects' Sawtooth Design Wins Finsbury Leisure Centre Competition - Image 1 of 4Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects' Sawtooth Design Wins Finsbury Leisure Centre Competition - Image 2 of 4Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects' Sawtooth Design Wins Finsbury Leisure Centre Competition - Image 3 of 4Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects' Sawtooth Design Wins Finsbury Leisure Centre Competition - Image 4 of 4Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects' Sawtooth Design Wins Finsbury Leisure Centre Competition - More Images+ 1

nArchitects Wins Shanghai Competition with Home-Inspired Library

nArchitects’ Library as Home has won first place in the 2016 International Young Architects Design Competition for the 110,000 square meter Shanghai Library East Hall in China. Hosted by the Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Government, the competition sought out designs that enhance Shanghai’s distinct cultural influence and promote community life.

Library as Home reflects these goals in its design as “a large house for all, with a rich variety of environments that Shanghai’s citizens could appropriate as their own.”

MLA+ and CAUPD Win Urban Design Competition to Regenerate Along the G107 Highway in Shenzhen

Foreign leading firm MLA+ and local leading firm the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, in collaboration with Felixx Landscape Architects & Planners and the Shenzhen Municipal Design & Research Institute, have won first prize in the urban design competition for the regeneration of an area along the G107 highway in the Bao’an district of Shenzhen, China.

Located on both aspects of the G107, the one- to two-kilometer piece of land forms a 53-square-kilometer area for the new plan, which will redevelop a fragmented industrial landscape created by the highway and Shenzhen’s identity as a former “Factory of the World” city.

Second-Place Design Proposes Revitalization of Busan with Film in Korea

The collaboration of Seiyong Kim, Yongwon Kwon, Sungyeon Hwang and Wonyang Architecture has won second place in the International Ideas Competition for Establishing Busan Station as The Cub of Creative Economy in Busan, Korea. The competition sought out proposals to revitalize the original downtown area, Busan Station is the starting point for a larger Busan North Port redevelopment project.

MOR Architects Wins Cultural Center Competition in Greece

MOR Architects has won first prize in the competition to design the Konaki Averof Cultural Center in Thessaly, Greece. The competition sought out proposals to convert an existing complex with historic importance into a modern socio-cultural multiplex.

In an effort to reinterpret the relationship between the building and its urban environment, the winning proposal reintroduces the horizontality of the landscape, before human intervention.

The design not only provides maintenance and restoration of the existing external shells of the complex but additionally creates a “new, free-standing longitudinal roof with extensive cantilevers on both sides.”

Winners Announced in Ideas Competition to Reimagine New York State Pavilion in Queens

The National Trust for Historic Preservation and People for the Pavilion have announced the winners of the New York State Pavilion Ideas Competition in the Queens borough of New York.

Sponsored by Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, the competition called for creative ideas to reimagine Philip Johnson’s New York State Pavilion, a “forgotten star” of the 1964-65 World’s Fair.

Radar Architecture&Art Wins Second Place in 'Activate' North Carolina Housing Competition

Radar Architecture&Art has won second place in the ACTIVATE North Carolina 2016 Housing Competition, which sought out innovative ways to reinvent urban housing for the 21st century.

Through its design, Radar proposes a “new way of inhabiting” and “a new sense of community” via a hybrid structure of public, semi-public and private space.

Radar Architecture&Art Wins Second Place in 'Activate' North Carolina Housing Competition - Image 1 of 4Radar Architecture&Art Wins Second Place in 'Activate' North Carolina Housing Competition - Image 2 of 4Radar Architecture&Art Wins Second Place in 'Activate' North Carolina Housing Competition - Image 3 of 4Radar Architecture&Art Wins Second Place in 'Activate' North Carolina Housing Competition - Image 4 of 4Radar Architecture&Art Wins Second Place in 'Activate' North Carolina Housing Competition - More Images+ 20

Benoy Releases Proposal for "Family of Towers" in Melbourne, Australia

International firm Benoy has unveiled Kavanagh Street, its competition proposal for a mixed-use tower development in Melbourne, Australia.

Set back on the banks of the Yarra River in the Southbank precinct, Benoy’s design is a five-building set or a “family of towers” on a shared nine-story mixed-use podium, all of which would host 315,000 square meters of residential, hospitality, commercial and retail space.

Circolo-A + Linearama Win Italian Competition with Ring-Shaped Complex

The team of CIRCOLO-A + LINEARAMA has won first prize in the AAA-Architetti Cercasi 2015 competition with its design, EPICICLO. As a mixed-use building, EPICICLO will feature apartments, alternative residences like student and social housing, common spaces, as well as both public and semi-private outdoor spaces.

The design is shaped after a ring so that it is open to the outside and comfortable on the inside. The design takes into account the relationship between public and private, not only creating a gradient from outside to inside but also varying public and private spaces within the building. Similarly, open and closed spaces are alternated, to create "spots of community life and moments of privacy."

Pliskin Architecture Reveals Proposal for Music School in Israel

Pliskin Architecture has been awarded as a finalist in the competition for the Mevaseret Music School, in Mevaseret Zion, Israel. The firm’s proposal centers on the site’s existing topography, as well as the idea of public space through the elevation of the classroom programs to the upper level, and the creation of a continuous open space at street level.

The new public space at the street level leads visitors to a partially covered plaza, which will act as the main access point for the various functions of the conservatory. A café will be located adjacent to the plaza, where visitors can be partially exposed to the school’s activity via the building’s massing.

Call for Entries: Outdoor Lab – a Multifunctional Area

OUTDOOR LAB is an initiative promoted by NUfactory within the Outdoor Festival 2016. The competition aims to exploit one of the former pavilions of the Guido Reni military station, reflecting on the theme of conversion that the space is experiencing: transform an old industrial laboratory in a meeting space, production, sharing and experimentation.

2016 Fuller Challenge Semifinalists Announced

The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) has announced 19 semifinalists for the 2016 Fuller Challenge. Now in its ninth annual cycle, The Fuller Challenge seeks proposals to address challenges using holistic approaches and problem solving.

Teams of individuals and groups were judged by the Challenge Review Committee, which looked for projects that are visionary, comprehensive, anticipatory, ecologically responsible, feasible, and verifiable.

The 2016 Fuller Challenge Semifinalists are: