Architecture and design competitions aiming to address social justice, equity, and mental health

As the weeks and months pass, 2020 has proven to be a time of immediate change. The architecture and design industry continues to self-reflect and re-address issues that effect the built and social environment — this goes for design competitions as well. Bustler has curated a list of competitions that focus on these themes with the hopes to create better solutions for the future of design.

Bustler, Archinect's sister site, is dedicated to providing the best competitions, events, and related news for architects, students, and design professionals. Check out the following open calls that stood out this week. For the complete list of newly listed competitions, click here.

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

Hip Hop + Architecture as Design Justice - OPEN CALL
Presented by: Hip Hop Architecture
Register/Submit Deadline:  Saturday, Jun 20, 2020

COVID-19 has challenged everyone to reimagine how we will use spaces in a post-Covid-19 society. How will movie theaters operate, what about hospitals, universities, and concert halls? Will live sports allow fans in the stands again? Will employees work from home on a permanent basis, if so, what changes are needed to our homes? These are all valid questions and explorations and coupled with the consistent injustices faced by African Americans, we challenge everyone to think about a new question. How will spaces look in a Just City? A city which has defeated and dismantled racism? What tools will help us get there? This Open Call for Submissions anticipates submissions in various mediums including, but not limited to drawings, songs, models, mobile app concepts, poems, fashion concepts, technological advances, products, etc. all aimed at displaying a Just City. A City which has defeated and dismantled racism. All proposals are welcome, from the most utopian to the most realistic.

An Open International Competition to Design an Innovative Furniture for Neglected Communities in India & Africa
Presented by: Ketham's Atelier Architects
Registration Deadline:  Tuesday, Jun 30, 2020
Submission Deadline:  Friday, Jul 10, 2020

Competition Brief Competition is open to everyone including students and professionals. Design a furniture, which is ergonomically sound, cost effective, environment friendly and feasible to build in neglected communities. As we all are aware, inhabitants in slums and other neglected communities lack space to accommodate. The furniture designed shall fit and transform from smaller spaces to larger spaces, based on adaptive user need, help them to store, sit, sleep, read, and write and more.

Women in Architecture and Construction Award | Middle East and North Africa | Tamayouz Excellence Award 2020
Presented by: Tamayouz Excellence Award
Register/Submit Deadline:  Saturday, Aug 1, 2020

Open call for submissions for women who work in architecture across the Middle East and North Africa. Brief and submissions portal can be found here. The Tamayouz Women in Architecture and Construction Award is an excellence award for women who have contributed to the fields of architecture and construction throughout the Near East and North Africa.  The award consists of two categories: Women of Outstanding Achievements and Rising Stars

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

Emotions, Architecture, Opioids seeks to explore the emotional impact of architecture: how the built environment can make people feel and behave in certain ways – similar to art or music. At the same time, the brief asks participants to consider the ongoing opioid crisis in the United States, and how architecture can be used to solve problems both for the individual and for society as a whole. The goal of the competition is to present an idea that combines opioid treatment through methadone distribution with ways to combat stigma relating to drug dependency, located at a site in Venice, Los Angeles. 

HEALING - Alternative Designs for Quarantine Cities
Presented by: Non Architecture
Register/Submit Deadline:  Saturday, Aug 22, 2020

Our world is changing fast, while ambitions and challenges match in importance. In this context, design can play a huge role. How do we imagine the world to be? What range of possibilities we haven’t discovered yet? What’s a Non-Architecture for a World in crisis? In 2020 we started the second phase of competitions to address the issues of tomorrow. Our exploration journey will start from a theme zero, a special step in our research program: Pandemic Society. In this competition, we ask you come up with visionary concepts for alternative urban life in relation to the COVID-19 emergency – Only 3 drawings, absolute freedom of scale, site or program. You are asked to reimagine urban life through a variety of creative design concepts and ideas.

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