This competition aims to gather reflections and design inputs for a more sustainable and equitable progress of cities. The competition theme proposes to look at communities through the lenses of technology and innovation.

Five overall topics are considered central:

• Environmental Sustainability
• Safety and Resilience to Climate Change and Disasters
• Ecology and Health
• Urban Regeneration, Densification and Heritage Protection
• Social Inclusiveness and Community thriving

These five topics can be conjugated into the two competition sites. The sites present common features but also radical differences. The two sites selected for this competition are located in Shenzhen High Tech Park (CN) and in Amsterdam Ijplein (NL), one of the first OMA’s projects. The first is defined as an “Innovation Ecosystem”, a complex urban form supporting a community of innovators and corporations in an interconnected system.  The second was framed as a “Socio-cultural Powerhouse”, for its diverse social composition, value in informality and cultural assets.

Participants can choose the site that better fits their interest and expertise and develop only one proposal, since winners for each site will be awarded separately.

Eligibility

Non Architecture Competitions are open to all human beings, from every age and cultural background, working in groups or individually. Personal information of all team members can be uploaded during the submission of the final drawing.

Participation can enter in two categories:

Open: In the spirit of Non Architecture Competitions, participants to this category can have any background or level of expertise. They will be asked to develop an idea on one or more of the topics of the competition, without any limitation to scale and site boundary. Students from any level of education (Bachelor, Master, PhD) should apply for this category.

Professional: Open only to those practising Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Design professionally, this category will call for a complete urban vision covering the whole extent of the competition site.

Participants in each category will be awarded separately.

Awards

Professional Category

All 20 finalists will be published on the Non Architecture website.

• Best Project Overall (1 prize) – 8,000 EUR
• Best Amsterdam Site (1 prize) – 5,000 EUR
• Best Shenzhen Site (1 prize) – 5,000 EUR
• Honourable Mentions (3 selected) – No monetary prize

Open Category

All 15 finalists will be published on the Non Architecture website.

• Best Project Overall (1 prize) – 3,000 EUR
• Best Amsterdam Site (1 prize) – 1,500 EUR
• Best Shenzhen Site (1 prize) – 1,500 EUR
• Honourable Mentions (3 selected) – No monetary prize