Future Climate Future Home Competition , Nedlands / Australien

 

Australian Urban Design Research Centre

University of Western Australia, School of Design

 

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report paints a grim picture of climate change, predicting soaring heat stress worldwide. Globally, heat is a silent killer that is already responsible for more deaths than any other natural disaster. Worryingly, the Urban Heat Island effect can amplify city temperatures by up to 10°C compared to peri-urban surroundings, posing significant health risks. Despite this, the design and planning implications of increasing temperatures on urban precincts, public open spaces and housing remain poorly understood. Preparing urban communities to be ‘climate-ready’ is critical, and there is a need for innovative urban design and planning strategies to underpin urban adaptation measures.

 

Commentary on climate change is often alarmist and can employ inflammatory language. Words like ‚catastrophe‘, ‚threat‘ and ‚urgency‘ are widely used. The problem is that such commentary can lead to denial, paralysis, apathy, or even perverse reactive behaviour. At the same time, a major blockage to transformational change is a lack of design vision that can capture the public imagination for more sustainable and climate-adapted futures.

 

With this in mind, the Australian Urban Design Research Centre and Uni of Western Australia School of Design‘s latest design competition, ‚Future Climate Future Home‘, aims to engage current experts and the next generation of designers and planners with climate-sensitive urban design techniques and elicit innovative climate-sensitive urban design solutions.

 

This international ideas competition is open to tertiary students and graduates from any climate region worldwide. We expect most entrants will be urban planners, urban designers, architects, and landscape architects, although entries from other relevant professional backgrounds are welcomed. Entrants are encouraged to work in multidisciplinary teams.

 

Submission deadline: 30th of November 2025, 11:59 pm

 

The competition will have a total prize pool of $15,000 (AUD).

This prize money would be split between the tertiary student and graduate entries.