The Self-Sufficient City

Hydro-Net City of the Future - IwamotoScott Architecture

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IaaC) and Hewlett-Packard are pleased to announce the 3rd Advanced Architecture Contest, on the theme of The Self-Sufficient City: Envisioning the Habitat of the Future.

The aim of the competition is to generate visions, ideas, and proposals that imagine what a self-sufficient city of the 21st century might be like. The contest is open to architects, planners, designers, and artists interested in confronting the challenges posed to urban settlement by environmental degradation, rapidly evolving information technologies, and globalization.

The competition jury will be composed of architects, directors of some of the world's foremost architecture schools, and mayors of prominent cities around the globe. They will seek the most outstanding and imaginative proposals for a self-sufficient city of the future, at any scale, and within any timescale.

The winning entries will receive cash prizes, as well as a one-year grant to support studies in the Master in Advanced Architecture program at IaaC. All of the projects selected will be featured in a special book to be published by ACTAR. Based in Barcelona, ACTAR is a leading international publisher of innovative books about architecture, graphic design, and contemporary art.

This is the third Advanced Architecture Contest to be organized by IaaC since 2005. The first competition, on the theme of Self-Sufficient Housing, attracted entries from more than 2,500 architects and students from 108 countries, clearly demonstrating the potential of the Internet as a medium for researching new architecture. The special book of the short-listed projects was selected by the RIBA Bookshop as one of the best new titles of 2006. The second competition was devoted to The Self-Fab House. The winners of these two previous Advanced Architecture Contests—from France, China, and Spain—have completed the IaaC Master course and are currently working on a variety of research projects. See past editions of the Advanced Architecture Contest here.