The UIA International Student Competition 2025 is an invitation for students from around the world to engage with the theme “Catalysts of Resilience” by addressing vulnerable places at risk of future habitational discomfort, inequality or collapse. The goal is to propose interventions that anticipate and mitigate these challenges by fostering resilience and adaptation to protect and care for these vulnerable sites. This competition asks students to think beyond conventional design methods, using time as a design strategy to catalyze resilient futures.
The competition topic aligns with the UIA World Congress 2026’s central theme of “Becoming: Architectures for a Planet in Transition.” The topic of becoming explores spatial practices that use time as a design tool. In the context of the UIA International Student Competition 2025, rather than proposing static projects, participants are encouraged to consider careful, time-based processes of transformation that respect and nurture the physical and cultural realities of the chosen site.
Submission Requirements
- Three (3) digital A2 horizontal panels, each a separate PDF file and compressed together in a ZIP folder (max. 30 MB)
- Panel 1: Characterizing Found Sites
- Panel 2: Short-term Proposed Transformation
- Panel 3: Long-term Course of Becoming
- “Becoming. Architectures for a planet in transition”, conceptual brief in PDF
Prizes
- 1st prize: 5000€
- 2nd prize: 4000€
- 3rd prize: 3000€
- 4th prize: 2000€
- 5th prize: 1000€
Eligibility
- The competition is open to any full-time registered students (individual or team) from all over the world.
- Multidisciplinary teams are encouraged.
- Only students of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design or urban planning can register as authors or coauthors.
- Students, associates, employees and family members of jury members and persons involved in the preparation of this competition are not allowed to participate in the competition.
