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NASA, who recently confirmed evidence of flowing water on Mars, has deemed SEArch (Space Exploration Architecture) and Clouds AO (Clouds Architecture Office) winners of the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge for Mars. Sponsored by NASA and America Makes, the teams were asked to use indigenous materials and 3D printing techniques to build a habitat for four astronauts on Mars. SEArch and Clouds AO's first prize proposal, ICE HOUSE was awarded $25,000, ahead of 30 other shortlisted practices.

"Recognizing that water is the building block to life, the team used a ‘follow the water’ approach to conceptualize, site and construct their design," said SEArch and Clouds AO. "[Our] proposal stood out as one of the few entries not to bury the habitat beneath regolith, instead mining the anticipated abundance of subsurface ice in the northern regions to create a thin vertical ice shell capable of protecting the interior habitat from radiation while celebrating life above ground."

London School of Economics (LSE) has launched a call for expressions of interest for its next major building project; the redevelopment of 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields (44LIF), which will be known as the Paul Marshall Building.

Following its redevelopment, the new building on the site of 44LIF will house a number of academic and research departments including the Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship. Paul Marshall is a major benefactor of the School and the Marshall Institute will make its permanent home in the new building at 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields which will take his name.

The Danish Building & Property Agency publishes the design contest notice for the restricted design competition for the "NEW AARCH", the new School of Architecture in Aarhus, Denmark. The restricted design competition will take place in 2016. Read the design contest notice here.

Aarhus School of Architecture, schmidt hammer lassen architects, VOLA, and the Danish Arts Foundation have announced their collaborative competition, entitled Drawing of the Year 2015, which calls for imaginative student drawings, and aims to “celebrate the oldest tool of architects.”

Students worldwide are invited to submit drawings “that inspire, communicate, and engage” with the theme of Sustainability Through Architecture. Thus, drawings “should focus on sustainability and architecture’s ambition to take an active part in the change of our society,” and “should address architecture’s ability to contribute to a sustainable environment on all scales—concepts, utopias, buildings, landscapes, and cities.”

Archstudies.gr and DeCorbuziers, in partnership with the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens, have announced their international student competition to design a conceptual funerary monument for the death of Modernism.

With this year marking the 50^th anniversary of Le Corbusier’s death, the team of organizations is seeking “contemporary interpretations concerning multidisciplinary approaches over Modernism and specifically over Le Corbusier’s work, while [exploring] possible themes and directions of the memorial representation” in present day. Designs should emphasize commentary, rather than a tribute to Le Corbusier.

Organized by AGMINIS, the MALL-BUSINESS-HOUSING DESIGN COMPETITION invites architecture students and recent grads from all over the world to develop a conceptual proposal for a new mixed-use complex in the city of Aguascalientes, Mexico. The complex should incorporate housing and office and commercial space, with the aim of a creating a new neighborhood center in the city. Registration is free and ends on October 21, 2015.

See the competition rules and requirements after the break. 

Foster + Partners has been shortlisted among 30 other finalists in the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge organized by America Makes and NASA. The proposal calls for a 3D printed settlement built by pre-programmed, semi-autonomous robots who use regolith found on Mars' surface to construct dwellings that can house up to four astronauts each.

"The proposal considers multiple aspects of the project from delivery and deployment to construction and operations," says Foster. "The habitat will be delivered in two stages prior to the arrival of the astronauts."

In June, the Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) released a call for architects interested in designing a New Embassy Compound (NEC) in Brasília, Brazil's federal capital. Of the 48 firms deemed eligible to compete, 6 practices have been shortlisted to move on to the second and final stage of the international competition.

These 6 shortlisted teams include: 

Bakpak Architects and EovaStudio have won a competition to design a multifunctional building in Rzeszow, Poland. The design—called The Pottery Courtyard—is based upon the local tradition of ceramic artisans, thus restoring a sense of heritage to the region and city.

A competitive shortlist of 9 has been released for a new high-profile art space planned in Manchester. The £110 million project, known as "The Factory" (after the city's influential Factory Records), will feature an "ultra-flexible" arts venue that can transform from a 2,200-seat theater into an open 5,000-capacity space that will accommodate a wide range of art forms and performances. It will also serve as the new home of the Manchester International Festival (MIF).

"The level of international interest reflects the city’s emerging status as an internationally-renowned city of culture. This is a landmark development that will place Manchester in the highest tier of arts worldwide," said Manchester City Council (MCC) executive member Rosa Battle.

The 9 shortlisted practices are: 

Metals in Construction magazine has launched a competition for architects, engineers, students, designers, and others from all over the world to submit their vision for recladding 200 Park Avenue, built a half-century ago as the world’s largest corporate structure, the Pan Am Building (now the MetLife Building).

The mandate is to reimagine this New York City icon with a resource-conserving, eco-friendly enclosure—one that creates a highly efficient envelope with the lightness and transparency sought by today’s office workforce while preserving and enhancing the aesthetic of its heritage. Entrants may now register on the competition's official website. The deadline for final submission is February 1, 2016.

The world of home décor is witnessing new trends and styles everyday. It is an intriguing space, infused with innovation and freshness. From innovative shapes and colors to unconventional materials, novelty is the name of the game!

First launched in 2014, Godrej Design Lab, in association with ELLE DECOR, is a platform that brings new creative design endeavors to life, acting as a catalyst for design experiments by propelling innovative ideas to the next level. This year designers are invited to showcase their skills, with a focus on ideas that strike the perfect balance between originality and manufacturability. Designers can submit their ideas across four categories: Furniture; Furnishings; Lighting; and Home Décor & Accessories. Shortlisted projects will be mentored by the best minds in the industry, and a handful among those designs will be developed into prototypes and exhibited at the prestigious India Design ID 2016.

HMMD Competitions has announced the winners of its Triple Bridge Waterfront design competition, which called for designs to transform the Liepaja Canal coastline into a leisure avenue in Liepaja, Latvia.

Divided into four individually functioning zones, the site in question connects the famous Fontaine Palace, Great Amer symphony concert hall, Libava Hotel, the former railway bridge, and the newly proposed park in Zirgu Sala. In their submissions, designers thus had to include a “restaurant/café, nightclub/bar, exhibition space/conference hall, and an unprescribed tourist attraction.”

Entrants were additionally asked to consider the relationship between modern and historic developments and influences, as well as sustainable growth.

“Successful entries to the competition were refined, yet nimble to accommodate a vast site flanked by historic building and exposure to a canal.”

The winners of the competition are:

Imagine that Eurasia has been brought to absolute destruction - by wars over religion, ethnicity or countries, or maybe even nuclear destruction. Cities, towns and villages across the super-continent are left in rubble or abandoned; all forms of organization are a fairy tale from a bygone era. Thousands of years of culture and civilization, gone.

What if a new Eurasia could arise from the remnants of this destruction? What artifacts and memories would remain, to seed the creation of a new Eurasia? Imagining New Eurasia, commissioned by Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, South Korea, invites anyone living in, or from Eurasia to submit their ideas, in the form of drawings, sketches, text, artwork, found objects, photographs, maps, memorabilia or any other kind of artifact, on how the future of a New Eurasia may pan out.

As a part of the flagship project for the EU-China Urbanization partnership, the Shenzhen Institute of Building Research Co., Ltd. (IBR) has announced its "Demand▪ Technology▪ Space Creative Competition" for the Future Low Carbon Building and Community Innovation New Experimental Center, also known as the Future Center.

Located in the underdeveloped Pingdi Subdistrict of Shenzhen, the project site is a part of the Shenzhen International Low Carbon City, a roughly 53 square kilometer area less than two hours away from Hong Kong with the goal of utilizing low-carbon and carbon-zero technologies in order to significantly boost sustainable development.

IBR is calling for submissions from individuals, teams, and even research institutes, design institutions, and any others, to participate in one, two, or all three of the competition’s categories.

US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, in partnership with the Softwood Lumber Board and the Binational Softwood Lumber Council, has announced the winners of the US Tall Wood Building Prize Competition. The two winning projects—Framework, by Framework, LLC, and 475 West 18th, by 130-134 Holdings LLC—will each receive $1.5 million in funding for their development in Portland and New York, respectively.

Each of the projects took a unique perspective on wood building systems, fulfilling the competition’s call “to showcase the safe application, practicality, and sustainability of a minimum 80-foot structure that uses mass timber, composite wood technologies, and innovative building techniques.”

Dominique Perrault, David Chipperfield, OMA, Shigeru Ban, Sou Fujimoto, and Jacques Ferrier are among 75 teams that have been selected to move onto Phase 3 of the highly anticipated "Reinventing Paris" competition. The first of its kind, the competition is calling on architects and designers to envision innovative projects to solve some of Paris' most pressing problems over 23 sites, from abandoned electricity substations to open spaces in the heart of urban areas.

Pershing Square Renew, a public/private partnership formed by Los Angeles City Council member José Huizar, has launched an international design competition to re-imagine the five-acre urban park at the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

Utah-based community project Summit has announced Mountain Architecture Prototype (MAP), an SPM Design Competition, "to select the design of a cabin prototype in an effort to push forward the conversation around what it means to build responsibly at 8,400 feet in the Wasatch [Mountain] Range.”

The competition seeks submissions for a structure of up to 2,500 square feet, which will be located on a 12 degree sloped site at Summit Powder Mountain. Sustainable designs are highly encouraged, particularly with the use of natural materials.

Open to any student of architecture or architect who has graduated within three years prior to their submission, the ISARCH Awards are international awards providing a platform for debate surrounding student solutions to architecture’s problems. The competition highlights avant-garde trends and recognizes new research emerging from university studies. By extending the traditional relationship of student to university, young people are encouraged to join the debate on architecture, contributing fresh new visions and opinions.

The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) is hosting an open call for proposals for the Pavilion of Turkey's exhibition at the 2016 Venice Biennale. The call is open to all people and institutions of relevant fields, including architects, designers, artists, historians, curators, theoreticians and critics.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute has announced 15 semi-finalists for its 2015 Fuller Challenge, which calls for “innovative solutions to some of humanity’s most pressing problems."

As the 8th cycle of the competition, this year’s Fuller Challenge drew the strongest application pool to date, receiving entries from 136 countries. Out of the many entries, one winner will receive a $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of their design.

The proposals were evaluated by the Challenge Review Committee, which focused on how the works are “visionary, comprehensive, anticipatory, ecologically responsible, feasible, and verifiable.”

The 2015 Buckminster Fuller Challenge semi-finalists are: