Filling the Gap 2025 is a student-oriented design competition incorporating new approaches to diversion, healing and rehabilitation to address present day societal crises. With issues ranging from the influx of highly addictive drugs to the suppression of Indigenous culture to an ever-increasing need for mental health care facilities, many members of society continue to fall through the cracks.
Various formal and informal strategies are emerging to address this shortfall; These new typologies seek to avoid institutionalization of the individuals involved and instead try to set them on a path to recovery.

Brief

The Canadian Academy of Architecture for Justice (CAAJ) is sponsored by Bird Construction and Arconas in order to invite architecture students to propose new approaches to diversion, healing and rehabilitation. These student competitors are asked to create a design for a new community-oriented building with the intention of filling a gap.

Filling the Gap 2025 competitors will select a site in a community of their choice, identify the specific crisis (or crises) being addressed, and then develop an architectural or urban design solution.

Design submissions will be
evaluated by a jury of justice experts and architects as well as industry professionals. Participants are highly encouraged to explore a wide spectrum of architectural responses, including ways in which the building integrates into its environment and acts as a catalyst for building positive community relationships.

Competition Requirements

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Submission Requirements for Filling the Gap 2025 include:

• Location plan
• Site plan
• Floor plans
• Elevations
• Key sections
• Planning diagrams and explanatory illustrations, including 3D images
• Maximum 500-word narrative

Each entry should also consider:

• A community-oriented justice facility that includes program elements seen as contributing to help solve the specific crisis that the competitor is addressing. These include: health and/or social services, transitional housing, library, educational facility, place of worship, etc.
• A selected site should be located in a community of the competitor’s choice.
• New, adaptive re-use and/or additions to existing buildings are acceptable, as well as other architectural interventions.

Eligibility

• Filling the Gap 2025 is an international competition, welcoming students both locally and worldwide.
• Individual competitors as well as teams are free to participate.
• Entrants must be currently enrolled in a school of architecture.
  • Students who are taking time off from their studies to seek work experience are eligible to apply. ​
  • Students who have completed their studies after January 2025 but before the submission date are also eligible.

Prizes

• The winner of Filling the Gap 2025 will receive $3,000.
• 2nd Prize: $1,000
• 3rd Prize: $1,000
• All winners will be featured on the CAAJ website.
• All individual winners/winning teams will additionally be provided with electronic certificates.