The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced an all-star shortlist of twelve renowned architects - including 2013 Pritzker Prize laureate Toyo Ito and international powerhouse OMA - competing to design their new headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Located on 24,000 square meter site on the banks of Lake Geneva, the 18,000 square meter headquarters will provide an “Olympic campus” of administrative buildings and service for 450 employees.

YAC just launched their latest competition, titled 'Post-Quake Visions,' which aims to find out innovative ways to overcome the effects of a seismic catastrophe over a medieval Mediterranean town. Participants are encouraged to rethink and redesign the quake-inflicted gaps left inside ancient urban tissues. This endeavour hopes to revamp such scarred ecosystem under cultural and economical keys, with the goal of finding out urban perspectives and social possibilities once undisclosed or unconceivable. 'Early bird' registration ends September 1, and the deadline for submissions is November 11. More information after the break.

Open to all architects and designers nation-wide, Constructed Realities is a biennial awards program established at the behest of the Small Firms Committee of AIA San Francisco. Recognizing exemplary performance in a broad range of architectural work, the program aims to inform the public of the diversity, value, and the social power of architecture. Entrants need not be AIASF members, and firms of all sizes are encouraged to enter with projects of varied scale and scope. The deadline for submissions is July 18. For more information, please visit here.

Starting this Saturday, the public will finally be able to admire the winner of this year's Young Architects Program - Party Wall - at the MoMA PS1 courtyard in Long Island City. Every Saturday this summer through September 7, Party Wall will be the multi-functional backdrop (at once wall, water feature, shading and seating storage device) for Warm Up 2013, an outdoor music series.

Canterbury Cathedral is delighted to announce a design competition to find an outstanding team to revitalise the landscape immediately in front of the main Cathedral entrance. The competition is an opportunity for designers to reconsider the way visitors first encounter England’s leading Cathedral and Mother Church.

The Department of State’s Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has shortlisted six design teams for the new U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The project is part of OBO’s Excellence in Diplomatic Facilities initiative in which seeks to provide safe and functional facilities that represent the best in American architecture.

For the second time, the Berlin Senate Department of Urban Development and the Environment is opening a Europe-wide call for projects for the Urban Intervention Award Berlin. For the first time, this prize is being offered in collaboration with Deutsche Wohnen AG and will for this reason be expanded to include the new Urban Living Award. Deutsche Wohnen AG will award prize money in the amount of €3,000 to the winners of the two categories in the Urban Intervention Award Berlin, ‘Build’ and ‘Temporary’, as well as the winner of the Urban Living Award. Interested architects can submit their work by August 24. For more information, please visit here.

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and HP just announced the 5th Advanced Architecture Contest, on the theme of 'Self-Sufficient Habitat'. Open to architects, engineers, planners and designers, the intent is to promote discussion and research through which to generate insights and visions, ideas and proposals that help us envisage what the city and the habitat of the 21st century will be like. Participants are encouraged to develop a proposal capable of responding to emerging challenges in areas such as ecology, information technology, architecture, and urban planning. The deadline for submissions is September 30, and registration is free. For more information, please visit here.

Winners of the Architect’s Eye 2013 Competition have been announced! In an effort to encourage photography by architects, the biennial competition asked entrants to submit photography in two categories: Architecture and Place focusing on the aesthetics of a building and how it shapes the location and Architecture and People focusing on the interaction of people in relation to architecture.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA), Make It Right, St. Bernard Project and Architecture for Humanity has formed a strategic partnership to launch “Designing Recovery,” an ideas competition created to aid in the rebuild of sustainable and resilient communities.

Inside 2013 invites students and young professionals of all design disciplines to submit a collection of their “inside” work comprised of up to three digital images. By submitting your work, you are invited to share your voice with the collective intelligence of a community of visual thinkers. Inside2013 poses the following questions: What are the aspirations by which we evaluate design today? In an increasingly networked culture, what makes a project capable of cutting through the virtual noise, and starting a new conversation? How do evolving forms of media affect the way in which your message reaches its destination? What is your message?

The competition challenges you to confront the world with your work. By sending it out into the field you will test yourself and your projects. You are the designer, the curator and the critic. Submissions are due June 30. For more information, please visit here.

Change—both collectively as a profession and individually as architects—is essential in three critical areas: culture, community, and commitment. Architects have the power to influence a broader societal culture that appreciates architecture and understands the value of an architect. Reflecting the Institute’s repositioning to serve the needs of our diverse membership, education content is to be relevant and emphasize practical application to support the needs of all members of the profession, particularly our emerging professionals and small firm owners in the areas of leadership, management, project delivery, and technology.

With that being said, the AIA is inviting articulate subject matter experts who can engage and connect with the design community in support of the Institute’s repositioning to submit a proposal for an educational program at the AIA National Convention in Chicago. The convention will take place June 26-28, 2014 in Chicago. The Call for Submissions are due July 1. For more information, please visit here.

The d3 Natural Systems competition invites architects, designers, engineers, and students to collectively explore the potential of analyzing, documenting, and deploying nature-based influences in architecture, urbanism, interiors, and designed objects. This year's competition seeks innovative proposals that advance sustainable thought and performance through the study of intrinsic environmental geometries, behaviors, and flows. By identifying, examining, and applying their structural order on form and function - bottom-up, performance-based solutions for limitless building typologies, functional programs, and material conditions may be realized. The deadline to register is July 1, and submissions are due July 15. For more information, please visit here.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) just announced the launch of a new design competition on behalf of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to create a new central London Headquarters - replacing their existing New Scotland Yard building. The Invited Design Competition provides architects/practices with the opportunity to produce a design for the renovation of this landmark in one of London’s most important and historic areas - to provide a modern, flexible and secure office environment for the MPS. The deadline for submissions is June 27. For more information, please visit here.

Open to students and professionals, the Seoul Institute just launched the international ideas competition for the first step to changing the Mapo Oil Reserve Base, a relic of the industrial era. Located in Sangam, this area was once an abandoned mountain of waste, but now stands as a state-of-the-art city that leads the future of Seoul. Aiming to achieve a communication and co-existence between people and nature, the oil reserve base will be returned to the citizens through the ideas of students and professionals who reflect the meaning and value of the land and regenerate the space to meet this new era’s core values of environment & ecology and sustainable future. The deadline for submissions is August 23. To register, and for more information, please visit here.

RIBA is now inviting expressions of interest from architect-led design teams with exceptional design skills for the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) New Global Center for the Social Sciences, the world’s leading center for social sciences. The next step in the campus development program is to further improve the School’s teaching, research and support facilities through the complete redevelopment of the center of its Aldwych campus. The new building that will be constructed will have a vital role to play in cementing the LSE’s position as a world renowned educational establishment and will become a place that inspires existing LSE students and will help attract new high caliber students and staff to the School. The deadline for submissions is June 14. For more information, please visit here.

Honoring the victims and Canadian survivors of the Holocaust, the National Capital Commission, on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is inviting teams of professional artists, architects, landscape architects, and other design professionals to submit their credentials and examples of prior work for the first stage of a two-phase competition to create a national Holocaust monument in Ottawa, Canada’s Capital. This monument will ensure that the Holocaust continues to have a permanent place in our nation’s consciousness and memory. The RFQ document is available now until September 4. To obtain the competition document, and for more information, please visit here.