Bustler's Top 10 Architecture Competitions of 2021

Concluding Bustler's year-in-review, we're taking a look back at the competition highlights of 2021.

Our previous posts focused on Bustler's Top-Prize Winning Architects and Designers and the Top Winning Projects and Student Works from the news section. Today we explore our competitions section: from the hundreds of architecture and design competitions listed here over the past 12 months, we compiled a countdown of the Top 10 Competitions of 2021. Take a look.

1. MICROHOME - Small Living, Huge Impact!/ Edition No.4

"The annual Microhome architecture competition is part of the Bee Breeders Small Architecture Appreciation Movement, which hopes to highlight the fact that bigger isn’t always better. With great design and innovative thinking, small-scale architecture could change how this and the next generation view residential property. "

2. 2022 Skyscraper Competition

"eVolo Magazine is pleased to invite architects, students, engineers, designers, and artists from around the globe to take part in the 2022 Skyscraper Competition. Established in 2006, the annual Skyscraper Competition is one of the world’s most prestigious awards for high-rise architecture. It recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the implementation of novel technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations; along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution."

3. The Home Competition 2021

"How do we define 'home?' Although our ideas about home are constantly being rethought, the careful examination of 'home' has recently come to the attention of architects and nonarchitects alike. In recent times, almost everyone has had to confront their perspective of 'home' as these spaces have evolved to incorporate so many aspects of our daily lives. The HOME competition invites all designers to explore ideas of domestic architecture for the future."

4. Arctic Hotel Competition

"YAC - Young Architects Competitions - launches ARCTIC HOTEL, a competition of ideas for the design of accommodation facilities combining hospitality and unspoiled nature and offering a unique experience for the observation of the Aurora Borealis."

5. 15 - MINUTE CITY | Urban Design

"Where everything is 15 minutes away – by foot, bicycle or public transit. The '15-minute city'” is an approach to urban design that aims to improve quality of life by creating cities where everything a resident needs can be reached within 15 minutes by foot, bike or public transit. This concept puts an emphasis on careful planning at the neighborhood level, giving each district the features it needs to support a full life – including jobs, food, recreation, green space, housing, medical offices, small businesses and more. And importantly, it’s a full life that doesn’t require a car. Participants are required to design a module for a 15-minute city that can be replicated to create a larger city. You are can design a fictional city or re-design a small part of an existing city anywhere in the world. Remember, you don’t need to design an entire city – just a module that can be replicated to create a larger city."

6. Architecture at Zero 2021-2022

"Architecture at Zero is a design competition for decarbonization, equity and resilience, open to students and professionals worldwide. It serves to engage the fields of architecture, design, engineering and planning in the pursuit of sustainable design. The 2021-22 competition challenges entrants to develop affordable housing for farmworker families in Visalia, California, one of the world’s most productive farming regions."

7. Low-Rise: Housing Ideas for Los Angeles

"Low-Rise: Housing Ideas for Los Angeles is a design challenge meant as a significant first step toward that conversation. Organized by the Chief Design Officer in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of Budget and Innovation and other partners, it is not a competition, at least not in the traditional sense, and in fact is marked by two features that we believe separate it from earlier efforts to engage architects in sketching out design proposals for new models of low-rise housing. To begin with, this design challenge is part of a larger research initiative, supported by the James Irvine Foundation and in collaboration with Urban Institute and other key partners, to explore new paths to homeownership and new models of affordability in low-rise neighborhoods across Los Angeles. This design challenge has been informed by that research project, and vice versa, in a symbiotic relationship we expect to continue well into 2021."

8. Render of the Year 2021

"Designers tell stories through images. They assume many roles, but common to them all is the task of telling the story of the spaces and worlds they imagine. Often, they must convey these thoughts with images. Through their images, they can shape and influence how others feel and understand their ideas [...] The Render of the Year award is seeking compelling images that tell stories of architecture, interiors, cities, and worlds that could be."

9. Architectural Gift/Toy Design’ Competition

"2021 the 1st Shanghai • Bund Cultural & Product International Design Competition aims to promote creativities exchange and transformation by combining universities, research institutes and matured manufacturing resources in the Yangtze River Delta, and help establishing 'Shanghai International City of Design' and 'Shanghai International City of Fashion'"

10. CBDX: BORDERLANDS

"The second in the CBDX Series—asks, How can designers intervene in borders? What logics of territory are necessary to mediate between areas on either side of a divide? Is it about 'or?' Perhaps 'and?' Perhaps neither? Perhaps both? And as advancements in technology further shorten distances and render immaterial previous restrictions across space, What even is the future of borders? How do we design borderlands? Thus, this competition asks entrants to consider the opportunities, challenges, and complexities latent within borders and propose new paradigms of operation and entropy."

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