Architecture and design competitions to keep you busy during this "new normal"

Remote working and social distancing may be the "new normal" for this Spring, but that shouldn't stop you from flexing those creative muscles. If you're seeking to find an outlet that will help offset your quarantine routine, enter a design competition! 

Bustler, Archinect's sister site, will keep you up to date with competitions you shouldn't miss. With one of the largest and most viewed online competition databases, check out what's new! Whether it be a call for grant submissions, reimagining design for health and play, or designing a new hotel, our curated list of featured competitions will keep you busy!

*The following competitions are organized by registration and submission due date.

The Deborah J. Norden Fund - Presented by The Architectural League of New York
Register/Submit Deadline: Sunday, Apr 19, 2020

The Deborah J. Norden Fund, a program of The Architectural League of New York, was established in 1995 in memory of architect and arts administrator Deborah Norden. The competition awards up to $5,000 annually in travel grants to students and recent graduates in the fields of architecture, architectural history, and urban studies. 2020 applicants must submit a maximum three-page proposal, which succinctly describes the objectives of the grant request and how it will contribute to the applicant’s intellectual and creative development.

PLAYHOUSE Competition - Presented by Playground, Ben Clark Design, and Barney Ibbotson Illustration
Register/Submit Deadline: Friday, Apr 24, 2020

Play is an essential part of all our lives, whether child or adult. Be it playing sports, a board game or simply sharing jokes with friends, play is just as important to adults as building a den or playing dress-up is to a child. The Coronavirus outbreak has left many of us having to spend extended periods of time at home in lockdown, restricting the opportunity to socialize and play in ways that we are used to.  How can we use creativity to encourage play at these unique times? Design something that will enable people  to play at home during lockdown. Your design could make an existing everyday activity playful, provide a break from work, or make work more fun.

RE-DRAW.02 GUGGENHEIM NEW YORK EXPERIMENTAL ARCHITECTURE REPRESENTATION
Register/Submit Deadline: Sunday, Apr 26, 2020

The aim of the RE-DRAW competition is to develop one drawing to ‘represent’ an iconic architecture. The participants are asked to draft one image, with absolute freedom of scale, technique and level of abstraction. We encourage creativity, criticality, and innovation. The drawing can highlight functional aspects of the building, showing a deep understanding of one or more design aspects. It can focus on the aesthetic qualities, experimenting and mastering a drawing technique with hyper-realistic outcomes, or it can be an optical deformation, a caricatural interpretation, a distant abstraction of the built architecture. 

Hill of the Arts - Presented by YAC: Young Architects Competitions  and Urban Up l Unipol
Registration Deadline: Sunday, Apr 26, 2020
Submission Deadline: Wednesday, Apr 29, 2020

A competition of ideas aiming to transform an almost-neglected villa near Turin into a unique and luxury art hotel. A cash prize of € 20,000 will be awarded to the winners selected by an outstanding jury panel made of, among the others,  Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid Architects), Daniel Libeskind, Emmanuelle Moureaux, Edoardo Tresoldi, Lukas Barry (Carmody Groarke architects), Paolo Danelli (DAP studio). Based on this awareness, Unipol is pleased to present Hill of the Arts. This is the competition that aims to create a new generation of [luxury] houses-hotel to enhance the consolidated art hotel model. Hill of the Arts will surely be a hotel. However, it will mainly be a performative center. It will feature music, painting, video-art and acting. It will be a place where the most distinguished creative minds can meet to outline, improve and comment on contemporary artistic trends.

4th Annual Healthier Design Innovation Contest - Presented by the Healthy Materials Lab at Parson School of Design
Register/Submit Deadline: Monday, May 18, 2020

For the first year, we are extending the contest to students outside of the United States. To be eligible to enter, you must be currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate degree-seeking design program.Impacts of design decisions are far-reaching, inescapable, and indisputable. As designers, the questions we continually ask ourselves are: how does what I make impact the world at large? What materials am I using? Who am I designing for and are my designs inclusive? We will choose winners who exemplify healthy material innovation and advocacy in design. Entries can include models, prototypes, artwork or visual media. We also require documentation of the design process through pictures, drawings/short videos, etc.

HOME: Design Your Dream - Presented by Archasm Competitions
Registration Deadline: Monday, Jun 29, 2020
Submission Deadline: Tuesday, Jun 30, 2020

Our home will always be the place for which we feel the deepest affection, no matter where we are. Home is our ‘little world’ where we dream of getting condensed after a hard day at work.’ Home is the place where we desire to be after a long vacation, to be able to feel the warmth of the walls surrounding us. Home is a very important link between a man and his idea of safety. The aim of the competition is to manifest into reality the idea of your dreams, and create a house based on it. The competition aims to create a pure and highly imaginative expression of a home that will have a degree of surrealism to it.

Emotions, Architecture, Opiods - Presented by Combo Competitions
Registration Deadline: Sunday, Aug 2, 2020
Submission Deadline: Sunday, Aug 9, 2020

The ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States is the worst drug crisis in US history. It likely began during the 1980’s, when opioids like morphine began to be used for long-term pain treatment despite their addictive nature. Over time this snowballed into a national health crisis. The goal of Emotions, Architecture, Opioids is to design a methadone medication unit located in Venice, Los Angeles. Proposals should address the stigma surrounding opioid dependency: in addition to administering methadone, the medication unit and its setting should offer an environment that is appealing regardless if you struggle with OUD or not.

Are you a competition advertiser looking for a platform to elevate your online reach and exposure? Send your competition directly to Bustler for our team to review! Who knows, maybe your competition will be featured in next week's round up. 

If you curious about Bustler's extensive advertising strategies for architecture and design competitions, reach out to us , and our team would be more than happy to help strategize with you.