Design Against the Elements is a global architectural design competition meant to find a solution to the problems presented by climate change. Spurred by the devastation wreaked in the Philippines by tropical storm Ondoy (Ketsana) and driven by a powerhouse multidisciplinary group of organizations from the private, institutional, and government sectors, the project aims to draw together the most innovative minds in the fields of architecture, design, and urban planning to develop sustainable and disaster-resistant housing for communities in tropical urban settings.

The Architecture Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of an open international competition to design a New Aldgate, a temporary landmark on the eastern edge of the City of London, to stand for the duration of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games, to open in January 2012.

Many cities around the world are facing the challenges of sustainable living and development and are exploring ways to enhance their ability to manage an uncertain future. In the developing world these challenges are often due to increasing concentrations of vulnerable people in vulnerable locations adjacent to rivers, coasts and in low-lying zones that are more floodprone.

Back in December we told you about the international design competition to re-invigorate the park and city areas surrounding “one of the world’s most iconic monuments”, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The five finalist teams have been announced, and the winner will be selected on September, 2010. The finalist teams are: - Behnisch Team - MVVA Team - PWP Landscape Architecture, Foster + Partners, Civitas - SOM, Hargreaves, BIG - Weiss/Manfredi Team

Exploration of natural systems from the microscopic to the universal unearths vast design potential for overlaying cultural, ecological, and life cycle flows toward determining new architectonic strategies.

Greenpeace is holding an Open Ideas Architectural Competition to find a winning design to fortify the Airplot. The competition is open to architects, landscape architects, architectural students and architect-led mixed disciplinary teams.

One Prize is launching this competition in the context of larger issues concerning the environment, global food production and the imperative to generate a sense of community in our urban and suburban neighborhoods.

This Competition concerns the development of the architectural conceptual design of the building to house the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, intended to become a new identity landmark of the City of Gdansk, and the conceptual site landscape design commensurate with the nature, status, and location of the site.

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Access to Trestles, one of North America’s most celebrated waves, is under threat due to safety and environmental concerns. Currently, over 100,000 people each year follow informal trails through marshlands and over active train tracks to gain access to the surf breaks at Trestles. These impromptu manmade paths present a safety hazard with passing trains and threaten the fragile ecosystem of Trestles.

The Chicago Architectural Club is pleased to announce the 2010 Chicago Prize Competition: MINE THE GAP, a single-stage international design ideas competition dedicated to examining one of the most visible scars left after the collapse of the real estate market in Chicago: the massive hole along the Lake Michigan shore that was to have been—and may yet be—the foundation for a singular 150-story condominium tower designed by an internationally-renowned Spanish architect, a tower which was to have become a new icon for the city and region.

The international ideas competition “TownShift: Suburb into City” recently announced the list of finalists. The competition seeks innovative ideas for five established town centers of Surrey, Canada: Guildford, Fleetwood, Cloverdale, Newton and Semiahmoo. The aim of the competition is to “Shift” thinking and opportunities for each of these “Town” hubs towards more intense, public-minded and productive urban futures.

We continue featuring the proposals for this years P.S.1 summer installation competition (awarded to SO-IL, read our full coverage of the PS1 competitions here).

The ‘Concrete Geometries’ Research Cluster at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London is seeking submissions of work from the fields of art, architecture, sciences and humanities that explore the relationship between spatial form and social or aesthetic processes.

The international architectural competition “Habitats Nomades” invites students, architects and designers to design a home  for a nomadic family.

Works carried out by students usually disappear into drawers after presentation to a relatively small college audience. There the work remains invisible.

The Spontaneous Architecture mini-competitions are a series of twelve monthly competitions to last throughout 2010. The entries are single images, and the entry fee is $5 per entry. The competition winners will be decided by fellow competition entrants (although no entrant may vote for their own proposal).

Young architects and designers are invited to submit work to the annual Architectural League Prize Competition. Projects of all types, either theoretical or real and executed in any medium, are welcome. The jury will select work for presentation in public programs, an on-line installation, podcasts, and an exhibition in late spring 2010. W

Atlantic City Boardwalk Holocaust Memorial Inc. is sponsoring an international open two-stage design competition for the purpose of realizing a Memorial to the Holocaust and genocide on a site dedicated for that purpose by the city of Atlantic City NJ. The competition will be anonymous and judged by a world class Jury. First stage submissions are on-line only.