A Global Design Competition, in Partnership with Aibuild  

Open Chair is a global ideas competition inviting architects, designers, makers, engineers, and creative thinkers to reimagine one of the oldest objects in human history through the lens of digital fabrication and open design.  

 With the rise of desktop manufacturing and accessible digital fabrication, the way we design and make objects is changing once again. Open Chair challenges participants to explore this new frontier by designing a full-scale chair that can be fabricated using a standard home 3D printer, assembled with minimal tools, and shared freely as an open design. This is not simply a challenge of aesthetics. It is a challenge of systems thinking, fabrication strategy, assembly logic, and design excellence. 

Participants are invited to create proposals that balance beauty with buildability, developing chairs that are not only visually compelling, but also realistically printable, constructible, and reproducible. Whether your proposal is minimal or complex, experimental or conventional, what matters is the clarity of the idea and the intelligence of its execution.  

The competition is open internationally to students, graduates, professionals, makers, and multidisciplinary teams. Selected projects will receive exposure through Creathlon's platforms, with money awards presented to the winning proposals.  
    

Submission Requirements  

2× 3D Print Files | A2 Board | Project Description | A2 Poster  

Key Dates  

• Registration Closes: 22 October 2026   

• Submission Deadline: 6 November 2026   

• Winners Announced: 12 January 2027   

Prizes  

• 1st Prize: £600 + Certificate   

• 2nd Prize: £300 + Certificate   

• 3rd Prize: £100 + Certificate   

• Honourable Mentions  

Registration Fees  

• Early Bird: £5 Single / £10 Team   

• Regular: £15 Single / £25 Team   

• Late: £25 Single / £35 Team   

Jury  

• Michail Desyllas - Co-Founder and COO, Aibuild  

• Vaishnavi Deo - Senior Creative Engineer, Aibuild  

• Sebastián Andía - Senior Associate, ZHA  

• Jillian Nishi - Senior Designer, ZHA  

• Andreas Palfinger - Architectural Designer / Creative Influencer  

• Andrei Oțet - Co-Founder Phenomena Laboratory  

Are you ready to rethink how furniture is designed, fabricated, and shared?    

Design a chair. Print it. Build it. Share it.  

Register and learn more:  

https://www.creathlon.co.uk/competitions/open-chair 

THE CHALLENGE

Performing Arts Center

A Performing Arts Center is a vital cultural hub that reflects a community’s creative spirit. It connects artists and audiences through performance, education, and imagination. The design challenge is to propose a dynamic architectural response that goes beyond a standard venue, integrating concrete masonry units (CMU), both standard and architectural, as the primary structural and finish material. Your design must serve as a major cultural catalyst by seamlessly integrating three core elements: multifunctional spaces, engaging the public and integrating the building with the community.

All details

The OPPORTUNITY

Integrated Material Research & Design

Ethical & Equitable Materiality: To End Forced Labor is a student competition that offers architecture students the opportunity to design a project using responsible design practices. Students are expected to engage both design and material investigation as interconnected processes, demonstrating how architectural decisions can contribute to eliminating forced labor from the building industry. Design for Freedom studies the mutual benefits of honoring both people and planet, creating buildings that allows our climate health, well-being and local economies to flourish.

All details

The OPPORTUNITIES

Community Youth Center & Open

The 2027 Steel Design Student Competition will offer architecture students the opportunity to compete in two separate categories:

Category I: Community Youth Center

Design a Community Youth Center in a site of your choice. Students are invited to submit design proposals that address how a youth center can contribute to the community as a more integral part of the neighborhood fabric.

Category II: Open

Offers architecture students the opportunity to select a site and building program using steel as the primary structural material. This competition category permits any building type other than a community or recreational center.

Students may not enter both categories of the competition.

The competition allows students to explore the many functional and aesthetic uses for steel as a building material and structural system. Steel is an ideal material for multi-story building because it offers the greatest strength-to-weight ratio. In addition, steel can be constructed quickly and for all project site types with the use of labor-saving prefabrication methods such as kit-of-parts, panelization, and modular construction. A building built with steel is potentially more flexible and adaptable to allow for a change in program, occupancy, and loading needs over time. It’s not required, but we encourage you to explore material reuse, steel framing and CLT decking hybrids, and new additions to existing buildings.

More details

Given their long lifespan, new buildings must be designed to address solutions to climate change and to respond to its projected impacts, well into the second half of the 21st Century and beyond. As with the COTE Top Ten award for built work by design professionals, COTE Top Ten for Students allows designs to be characterized in terms of 10 principles ranging from Community to Water to Wellness.

About the Competition

The AIA COTE® Top Ten for Students Competition is sponsored by The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE®), in partnership with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). Each year, the competition recognizes ten exceptional student design studio projects that integrate health, sustainability, and equity, evaluated following the same categories of the AIA COTE® Top Ten Award for built work, and the AIA Framework for Design Excellence (now adopted as the basis of professional practice and awards across the AIA).

The 2027 AIA COTE Top Ten for Students Competition offers architecture students the opportunity to compete in two separate categories:

Category I: FOUNDATION LEVEL
This category is open to students enrolled in first-year and second-year design studios, or related classes; in 2-year, 4-year, and undergraduate programs from any ACSA member school, including international member schools. Faculty will be required to confirm satisfaction of this requirement upon registration in this category.

Category II: UPPER LEVEL
This category is open to upper-level students (third year or above, including graduate students) from any ACSA member schools, including international member schools. Faculty will be required to confirm satisfaction of this requirement upon registration in this category.

Students may not enter both categories of the competition.

More details

We're inviting architects, interior designers, landscape architects, construction innovators and emerging talents to share their work with an international audience that values excellence, clarity and purposeful design. If you’ve completed something recently that reflects your craft and vision, this is the perfect moment to present it.

Reflecting on the past season, co-founder Astrid Hébert shared a sentiment that still resonates: “The ceremony in Switzerland was a truly inspiring moment. Seeing internationally established firms and first-time student winners share the same stage reminded us why the BLT Built Design Awards exist. Every project carries a unique story, every designer adds a new perspective, and together they create a powerful dialogue about the future of our built world. As we open the 2026 edition, we are genuinely excited to welcome the next wave of ideas and contributions.”

Your submission will be evaluated by an extensive jury of respected architects, designers, educators, innovators and industry leaders. Their combined expertise spans the full spectrum of the built environment, ensuring a rigorous, informed and globally relevant review process.

Among them are Samantha Lassoudry, Founder and Chief Designer at Lassoudry Architects; Christian Brendelberger of Dietziker Partner Baumanagement AG; Anastasia Ignatova, Urban Planning and Design Expert; Andreas Rupf, Head of ETH RAUM; Muhammad Habsah of U+A; Mona Vijaykumar of Perkins&Will; Cas Esbach of KANS and SCAD; Tran Ngoc Danh, Vice President of the Vietnam Design Association (VDAS); Christina Chen-Chiao Kuo of Kuuo Living Limited; Omar Zhan, Co-founder of Surfaice and “Construction Voices”; Amir Idiatulin, Founder of IND; Zhou Yi, Chief Designer at Dayi Design; Rudi Stouffs of the National University of Singapore; Osaru Alile of CC Interiors Studio; Pal Pang, Chief Creative Officer at Another Design International; Juliet Kavishe of the Pan Afrikan Design Institute; Sandra Baggerman of Trahan Architects; Des Laubscher of Greenside Design Center, College of Design and Hannah Churchill, Founder of hcreates interior design. It is a rare opportunity to have your work reviewed by such a broad and distinguished panel of designers who understand the realities of practice, the complexities of construction, the cultural weight of architecture, and the importance of creating spaces and products that matter.

Winning a BLT Built Design Award offers more than recognition. Honourees receive international visibility through the BLT platform, publication in the annual BLT Book of Design, global media outreach and the chance to be celebrated at our next ceremony, where industry leaders and creative minds come together to connect, exchange ideas and celebrate design.

To help our early entrants, we’re offering a 10% Early Bird discount until March 31st, 2026. If you plan to submit, now is the ideal time. Submit your project at bltawards.com. We can't wait to discover what you've been working on.

The competition seeks to bring together the best visions to conceive a landmark project that combines architectural excellence, landscape integration, sustainability, and innovation, responding to the needs of one of the country's most important social and sports institutions.

The new headquarters will be developed on a 91-hectare site and must be designed as a space for gathering, wellbeing, sport, and community, capable of strengthening the members' experience and becoming a benchmark for design, spatial quality, and connection to its surroundings.

The call includes an initial open stage for the submission of credentials and portfolios to select the teams that will take part in the Ideas Competition by invitation.

More Information & Competition Guidelines

Presented each year, the awards recognize the work of NOMA members whose projects demonstrate thoughtful design and meaningful contributions to the built environment. Named in honor of Phil Freelon, the program celebrates design excellence while recognizing projects that serve communities and strengthen the profession.

Architects, designers, and firms are invited to submit work in five categories:

• Built Work
• Unbuilt Work
• Vision
• Small Projects
• Historic Preservation, Restoration & Renovation

Award recipients will be recognized during the 2026 NOMA Conference | The Leading Edge, taking place October 14–18 in South Florida.

The submission deadline is Monday, August 3, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

The Phil Freelon Professional Design Awards continue a long tradition of recognizing the talent, creativity, and leadership of NOMA members. If you have a project that reflects the impact of design in practice or in the community, we encourage you to submit your work for consideration. Learn more about the awards at noma.net/phil-freelon-professional-design-awards 

Please send us your work digitally, to info@icarch.us, by October 15th, when there will be 100 years since Foucault's birth. Please use two sheets format A1, oriented vertically. If you have any questions, please contact us. Please register through our website by October 1st. We will publish all the works received on our website and we also plan to have a traveling exhibition.

www.icarch.us

Please send us your work digitally, on two sheets format A1, to info@icarch.us, by September 1st, 2026. Please register on our website by August 15th. If you have any questions, please contact us. We will publish all the works received on our website.