Design for Living: Global Contest to Rethink Our Habitat from the Body to the City

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia calls its 8th Advanced Architecture Contest titled Design for Living, an opportunity for a global reflection to rethink human habitats where 126 proposals from all around the world help to shape our understanding of contemporary design and architecture.

This effort offers the opportunity for a global reflection to rethink human habitats, at a time when the fight for life and climate allows us to consider how we would like to live in the coming decades. We like to think that each person’s life begins at home, which is the center of their universe and the origin of their social interactions. During the pandemic, we had been confined to our homes and they have become microcities where we live, work and rest, connected to the world through information networks. So, after this experience, how do we imagine the future for our living environment?

The contest encourages participants to propose a design related to their way of life, at the scale that most interests them from our bodies to the city, anywhere in the world, and that reflects different cultural, environmental, economic or social conditions. In total, the competition received 193 proposals from all around the world and the book includes all the rules and results of the competition, the 33 members of the international jury and the images and information of 126 selected projects. Seen as a whole, this effort serves to build a contemporary vision of the conditions that are currently shaping design and architecture and will continue to shape it in the following years.