Architecture and Innovation Awards

Every year, in partnership with UNESCO, the Foundation organizes an international architecture and innovation competition. This unique call for creativity offers artists, architects, designers, engineers and urban planners a unique opportunity to work in multi-disciplinary teams to propose daring and disruptive architectural projects focused on climate, ocean and space.

KEY FIGURES

  • 11000applications
    since the beginning
  • 150nationalities
    from all five continents
  • 5000press coverage worldwide

CRITERIA

1The Human place in the project
2Biomimicry & bio-inspiration Sustainable development
3Sustainable development
4Architectural quality
5Prospective dimension
6Innovation & technique
7Graphic quality
8Respect of the fundamental laws of physics
9Respect of the theme

The GRAND PRIX

Space

Opening up fields of development and technological applications that are essential for the future of our civilisation.

Sea

Meet today's major challenges, and in particular the Ocean, the guarantor of our environmental and social living environment.

Climate & Rising Waters

Acting for greater environmental responsibility by integrating water and climate issues into the development of our society.

LAB Architecture and Innovation Special Award

The jury reserves the right to select a project from among all the entries submitted in phase 2 that addresses one of the 3 themes (Sea, Space, Climate and rising sea levels) in terms of its ability…

MANIFESTO

The Earth and all the wonders it creates are masterpieces in which we evolve. We cross territories, oceans, skies and stratospheres, each time discovering the richness of their bodies, their structure and the diversity of their forms, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large.

We have become aware of the treasures that populate and cover it, of their power and elegance. In these complex and uncertain times, major changes are affecting and overturning our planet. The climate, societies and the rights of living beings are all changing. We need to be imaginative. But above all, we must learn to observe in order to act. And to anticipate better.

Creators, thinkers, artists, talented women and men: the Planet is waiting for you!           

For you who are enlightened and passionate, with the energy of your youth for some, and armed with what builds your convictions for others, and who wish to commit yourself to a resilient future, you can draw it and build it to last and withstand the shocks of a reordered and transformed modernity.

In 2023, for its 13th edition, the Foundation invites you to push the boundaries. Don’t be afraid to dream by daring, today more than ever. You can influence and propose reinvented living environments through architecture, a permanent field of creation and experimentation at the confluence of arts, sciences and technologies. Nature, a constant inspiration: biomimetics and its 3.8 billion years of evolution allow us to open and explore this new path of innovation. The great Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Take your lessons from nature, that’s where our future is.”

Your projects must be bold, forward-looking. Enthusiastic more than normalized, they will show that inspiration, when it intersects form, function and environment, can lead a simple idea where it is not expected. Based primarily on biomimicry, in line with the safeguarding of our ecosystems and its biodiversity, they will have to be conceived and drawn in a multidisciplinary way.

We will be 10 billion by 2050. Three-quarters of the population will live near rivers and seashore and will be directly impacted by climate change, rising waters and erosion. As for the exploration of space, it is now inevitable and must be part of a transgenerational approach, conducive to other possibilities, and change paradigms to reconcile Humanity and Nature.

2022 PRIZE LIST

Discover the winners of the 12th edition of the Foundation's international architecture and innovation competition