Looking for something to do this week? If you are in the greater Los Angeles area, come check out the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) sixth Solar Decathlon at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine. Currently on view through October 13, this (free!) event showcases nineteen student-built, solar-powered homes that claim to be exemplars of sustainable housing. After being closely monitored by the DOE throughout the length of the competition, one team will be crowned as winner for successfully blending affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.

Parramatta City Council is delighted to invite you to participate in an exciting architectural design competition, Architectural Concept Competition for Stages 5 and 6 of the Parramatta Square Precinct development, Sydney.Council is inviting architects to submit visionary ideas for two large commercial towers in the heart of Parramatta City Centre.

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London-based Twelve Architects & Masterplanners have won a competition to deliver a radical new airport for Rostov, Russia, just in time for the 2018 World Cup.

For this new edition of the Festival Des Architectures Vives, two calls for submissions are proposed. Using the theme 'Sensuality', the association Champ Libre sends a call for submissions in order to realize 10 interventions in the Montpellier Festival, and/or 7 interventions in the La Grande Motte Festival.

The Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD), the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSARG) announces the launch of the international competition for "Design Ideas Competition for Preservation Corridor for Lung Tsun Stone Bridge Remnants". The Competition is open to participants in both the Professional Group and Open Group with age 18 or above. The Professional Group is open to the professionals in the fields of architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, planning, urban design or surveying. The Open Group is open to the general public.

Now in its tenth year, the Emirates Glass LEAF Awards honor the architects designing the buildings and solutions that are setting the benchmark for the international architectural community. Founded in 2001, the competition is organized by the Leading European Architects Forum (LEAF) and recognizes innovative architectural design. 17 different awards were given to various projects and architects, with one overall winner. Check out the winners after the break…

The RIBA and the Mayor of London's Office has revealed the five shortlisted designs for the new Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) headquarters, set for completion in 2015. The proposed designs, attracting submissions from Foster + Partners, Allies & Morrison, Keith Williams Architects, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), and Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, will be located in the Whitehall Conservation Area and be renamed back to 'Scotland Yard'.

Last May, the Van Alen Institute of New York called on emerging architects to design an engaging and accessible street-level venue for the Institute to house its entire work space and public programs. This past July the competition finalists were revealed and now Collective–LOK has been announced as the winner of Ground/Work: A Design Competition for Van Alen Institute’s New Street-Level Space.

The Berkeley Prize supports the study and teaching of the social art of architecture. The online, two-stage Essay Competition (in English) is open to undergraduate architecture majors in accredited schools of architecture throughout the world.

The international competition for the architectural and urban planning concept of the 'Serp & Molot' Factory in Moscow opened its registration last week.

Launched in 2007, FuturArc Prize aims to generate forward-thinking, innovative Green building design ideas for Asia. The Competition offers a platform to professionals and students who are passionate about the environment. Through the force of their imagination, it aspires to capture visions of a sustainable future. This is open to architects and architecture students in Asia and the world.

The OAO HOTEL UKRAINA, with the support of the non-state educational institution Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, are pleased to announce the opening of a competition for the redesign of the entryway to this cultural heritage site of regional significance. This two-stage competition, lasting from 17th September 2013 to 25th February 2014, gives architects from all over the world the rare chance to work with an example of Moscow’s unique Stalinist architectural heritage.

The skyline rises in tandem with the population of the city. Demographers predict that New York alone will add one million more residents by 2040. Finding housing will pose a crisis for hundreds of thousands of them, unless new residential towers are built to house this urban influx.

In attempts to better define what it really means to be green, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, in partnership with Make it Right, has selected products from ten companies as finalists in the Product Innovation Challenge. 144 applicants were screened by toxicologists and building professionals, proposing new alternatives from insulation grown from fungi and bricks from living organisms, to roofing made from waste limestone and recycled plastic. The ten finalists represent the shared values of practical sustainability and entrepreneurship, creating "a building product that is safe, healthy, affordable, effective and designed to be returned safely to nature or industry after use."

The winners of the 2013 Lamp Lighting Solutions Awards have been announced. With a total of 608 projects submitted from 52 countries, €48,000 in prize money has been awarded to 5 winning teams. The Lamp Awards were given to projects that successfully met the architectural lighting needs of an interior or exterior space, having created a positive synergy between the architecture, interior design, landscaping and lighting. The four categories included Architectural Outdoor Lighting, Indoor Lighting, Urban and Landscape Lighting, and Students Proposals.

The Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark, The Danish Agency for Culture and the award winning architecture and design office SHL proudly announce a joint venture ‘Drawing of the Year 2013’.Entries are invited from all architectural students of drawings that inspire, communicate and engage. The internationally acclaimed jury will be looking to award drawings that focus on entries that express the architect’s aesthetic and conceptual approach as a dialogue with – and through the medium – of drawing.

A team from the Moscow Strelka Institute - Izabela Cichonska, Nathan de Groot, Lindsay Harkema and Ondrej Janku - has been awarded first place in the TAB 2013 Vision Competition, Recycling Socialism. Challenged to propose a scheme for urban remediation that could diversify the concentric plan of Väike-Õismäe - one of Tallinn's three larger Soviet-era panel-apartment districts - to enhance quality of life, the winning team envisioned Dynamo: a radical plan that would reactivate the sleepy district by “recharging the ground.”

The Center for Architecture + Design and the Seed Fund announced the winners of the Reimagine. Reconnect. Restore What if 280 came down?, a competition that explored the idea of removing San Francisco's 280 Freeway, north of 16th Street, in an effort to pedestrianize that portion of the city while generating funds for several regionally important transit projects. The open competition, which encouraged designers to submit urban design interventions, from public art to infrastructure, awarded $10,000 in prizes.