Exploring ideas

Architecture competitions may help you explore past ideas that you haven’t been able to fully resolve or they can help open doors to new ideas that may help you out, further along in the future.

It could also be a refreshing exercise to partake in if you have been experiencing a creative block of some sort.

Inspiring briefs

Working on such conceptual and less restrictive design briefs could benefit the way you approach your real world projects. 

Honing skills

You can even pick specific skills that you would like to master by participating in an architecture competition. For instance you might want to work individually to enhance your rendering skills or you might want to work with a group of people to polish your collaborative skills. Having clear goals can make achieving them a lot easier. 

In a way it is like investing your time for some architecture skill development. Look at it as a chance to grow as an architectural professional.

As there will be strict deadlines for the architecture competitions, you will have to work efficiently under pressure to produce innovative design solutions. This will be useful practice for when you will have to work on projects that run for a similar duration as the architecture competition in the future. 

With the short time limits, architecture competitions can be the best opportunities for you to identify and refine your design process. Doing this will help you know your strengths and weaknesses moving forward. 

Variety of choice

It could be a topic you are familiar with so as to explore a different design response, or one that is completely new to you to challenge yourself. You can even pick a topic based on your strengths and weaknesses. Maybe your strength lies in working in an urban context, why not try and participate in an architecture competition that deals with a rural context?

Building experience

Since it can be hard to gain this sort of experience while in architecture school or when you are in the process of looking for a job, architecture competitions can be perfect to keep you busy. 

Regardless of where you are in your architecture career, participating in an architecture competition can be a splendid opportunity to let those creative sparks fly.

Also if you are particularly interested in working for a firm that is known to partake in competitions or has a dedicated competitions team in their office, getting experience through a handful of architecture competitions may be greatly beneficial.

It could also be that you want to work in a specific country, so entering an architecture competition based in that country might help you familiarise with the context and add to your design knowledge. This can show that you are willing to take initiative and improve yourself as a designer.

The long term benefits would be that you will have accumulated design knowledge working with various different contexts and site conditions which could really come to your aid as a designer. 

Win-win

However even if you don’t win, it can be an equally interesting learning opportunity. If it is your first ever architecture competition, you will have unlocked a new experience and it will have taught you a lot. 

Many architecture competitions will have juries that are composed of architecture professionals from across the globe. It would be a great honour to have your work critiqued by them. And if feedback is guaranteed, they may leave you with some invaluable insights and tips that you might not have been familiar with before. This could be super helpful for future endeavours. 

An added bonus of doing an architecture competition is that all the work you would have produced can be showcased in your portfolio. 

Also once the results are out, you will have an opportunity to be inspired by the different approaches that your peers or fellow competitors would have taken to the same design problem. 

You will have exercised your creative brain, ready to take on your next design challenge. Who knows it might even be another architecture competition.

Presentation is key

Architecture competitions could be good places to test out graphic styles that you may have been wanting to try but haven’t found the right context/project for.

However as these competitions mostly span a very short amount of time, it can prove difficult to design every single aspect of your submission from concept to final presentation. Worry not! Our super helpful Architecture Presentation Board Templates are great to save you a huge amount of time. All you need to do is insert your images and text into the designated placeholders.

Architecture Presentation Board Templates – First In Architecture

Word of caution

Once you find an architecture competition on a topic that interests you, thoroughly read through all the information provided such as the eligibility requirements, briefs, terms and conditions etc. Some competitions may require entry fees, so evaluate whether these could be the right choice for you. Ensure that feedback is guaranteed on the work you submit, if you look forward to it. 

In addition to this, look for some line of communication with the architecture competition providers in case you have any questions or queries regarding the submission. Usually these competitions have set deadlines before they stop answering questions so make sure you know when that is.