2021 Skyscraper Competition

eVolo Magazine is pleased to invite architects, students, engineers, designers, and artists from around the globe to take part in the 2021 Skyscraper Competition. Established in 2006, the annual Skyscraper Competition is one of the world’s most prestigious awards for high-rise architecture. It recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the implementation of novel technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations; along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. It is a forum that examines the relationship between the skyscraper and the natural world, the skyscraper and the community, and the skyscraper and the city. 

The participants should take into consideration the advances in technology, the exploration of sustainable systems, and the establishment of new urban and architectural methods to solve economic, social, and cultural problems of the contemporary city including the scarcity of natural resources and infrastructure and the exponential increase of inhabitants, pollution, economic division, and unplanned urban sprawl. 

The competition is an investigation of the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community. It is also a response to the exploration and adaptation of new habitats and territories based on a dynamic equilibrium between man and nature – a new kind of responsive and adaptive design capable of intelligent growth through the self-regulation of its own systems. 

There are no restrictions in regards to site, program, or size. The objective is to provide maximum freedom to the participants to engage the project without constraints in the most creative way. What is a skyscraper in the 21st century? What are the historical, contextual, social, urban, and environmental responsibilities of these mega-structures? 

eVolo Magazine is committed to continuing stimulating the imagination of designers around the world – thinkers that initiate a new architectural discourse of economic, environmental, intellectual, and perceptual responsibility that could ultimately modify what we understand as a contemporary skyscraper, its impact on urban planning and on the improvement of our way of life.

SCHEDULE

• July 15, 2020 – Competition announcement and registration opens. 
• November 17, 2020 – Early registration deadline 
• January 26, 2021 – Late registration deadline 
• February 9, 2021 – Project submission deadline (23:59 hours US Eastern Time) 
• April 27, 2021 – Winners’ announcement

JURY

• Erkko Aarti [Partner, Aarti Ollila Ristola]
• Koray Duman [Principal, Büro Koray Duman] 
• Reza Najafian [Principal, ReNa Design] 
• Arto Ollila [Partner, Aarti Ollila Ristola] 
• Eric Parry [Principal, Eric Parry Architects]
• Mikki Ristola [Partner, Aarti Ollila Ristola]
• Isa Ye [Founder, Young Bird Plan + Designverse]

AWARDS

• 1st place – $5000 USD 
• 2nd place – $2000 USD 
• 3rd place – $1000 USD 

Winners, honorable mentions, and selected projects will be published in the forthcoming book EVOLO SKYSCRAPERS 4 to be released in 2021.

COMPETITION WEBSITE