Join
The DEAwards are open to everyone. To join the awards, please proceed to the User Panel (https://profile.designeducates.com/login), where you can register for the awards, prepare drafts of your submissions, make registration payments, and see the list of your submissions, and comprehensiveness. 

Intro
You might ask yourself, “Do we need another architecture and design competition?” Many architecture and design awards recognize and promote the “beauty” of successful design. But we wanted to go one step further in the Design Educates Awards (DEAwards). We do not just want to see aesthetically and technically pleasing designs—we want something that offers the educational added value. We look for designs that will have a lasting influence beyond the ever-present effects of design and architecture.

About
The DEAwards recognize, showcase, and promote the best projects of architecture and design that provide an informative and educational layer that guides us through the increasing complexity of our environment. Such a layer can highlight specific possibilities and challenges, explain sociocultural factors and influences, or even outline new scenarios for future development. Each year, the esteemed panel of judges selects outstanding ideas and implementations in architectural design, product design, universal design, and responsive design.
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Theme of the Awards
Visual arts and, even more obviously, language have long been accepted as forms of expression with social and even political impacts. But even design and architecture, although generally quieter disciplines, can communicate and speak to us. The theme of the awards is inspired by the research titled “Educating Buildings” (“Bildende Bauten”) by Dr. Peter Kuczia.

Criteria of evaluation
The winners, laureates of prizes, honorable mentions, and nominations will be selected in each category: (1) architectural design, (2) product design, (3) universal design, and (4) responsive design. Participants may submit multiple projects. There is no limit on the number of participants per team. Individual entries are allowed. Entries will be evaluated based on the following criteria: overall idea and implementation, the potential for educational influence, effectiveness and quality of the informative layer, aesthetics, quality of presentation, visionary approach, originality, and feasibility. 

Prizes & benefits

_The elite group of laureates
The DEAwards are about building a community of professionals who make our surroundings more functional, beautiful, safer, healthier, and more sustainable.

_Inclusion in the book
The awards laureates are presented in the annually issued book, along with the members of the Jury and introductions by the curators and directors. As a laureate, you will receive your book copy free of charge during the awards ceremony!

_Exhibition in Germany
During the Architecture in Foyer Conference, your design will be printed and presented in an annual exhibition at Solarlux Campus in Germany. It is a great way to network with other professionals and possible clients while showing your work.

_A gift certificate from v2com for the winners
You will receive a gift certificate to distribute one press kit on v2com newswire, the world’s largest specialized media network publishing the most prestigious architecture and design publications. 

_Certificates and winning labels
You will receive the digital version of your certificate via e-mail and the printed version during the awards ceremony. The certificate proves your outstanding success, which you can easily use during your professional endeavors.

_Lifetime Winner title with press packages
All the benefits that the DEAwards offer are for life, and this will never change. Once you join the prestigious group of laureates, you will always be able to use all related titles, labels, and certificates!

_Presentation during Ceremony
During the awards ceremony, you will be able to present yourself and your design during the Awards Ceremony!

_Promotion within the group of media sponsors and media supporters
Thanks to our collaboration with the global network of media partners and sponsors, your design and success will be promoted globally via their promotional channels.

Ceremony
The awards ceremony will take place during the Architecture in Foyer 2023 conference at the Solarlux Campus in Germany (Melle, Lower Saxony, Germany) from September 22–23, 2023. The conference will be hosted by Solarlux GmbH (the strategic partner of the awards). Among previous key-note speakers of the conference were among others Jette Hopp (Snøhetta), Sven Thorissen (MVRDV), Prof. Jan Krause, Prof. Tobias Walliser (LAVA), Amandus Samsoe Sattler (Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten), Prof. Barbara Holzer (Holzer Kobler Architekturen),Theo Jansen (Strandbeest). www.architektur-im-foyer.com/en/

Book
The laureates and winning entries are presented in the annual publication of Design Educates. The previous volumes of the book included information about the jurors and partners and also handwritten notes of inspiration on design, education, and innovation (prepared by the selected jurors). The book is a great way to present your success to possible clients and collaborators. Moreover, as a laureate, you will receive your copy of the book free of charge during the awards ceremony! Get your ‘Design Educates’ book here!

Jury of 2023 edition
The Jury of the edition 2023 has been joined by:
Prof. Toyo Itō (Architect, Toyo Ito & Associates, Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize);
Prof. Achim Menges (Architect, professor at the University of Stuttgart, founding director of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction);
Lucy McRae (Science Fiction Artist, Body Architect, Lucy McRae);
Julie Payette (Publicist, Founding Partner of v2com newswire);
David Basulto (Founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of ArchDaily);
Dr. Peter Kuczia (Architect, Designer, Initiator of the Design Educates Awards);
The full jury panel for the 2023 edition will be unveiled soon.

The previous panels have been joined by, among others: Jette Cathrin Hopp (Snøhetta), Prof. Winy Maas (MVRDV), Jakob Lange (BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), Prof. Claudia Pasquero (ecoLogicStudio), Doris Sung (DOSU studio), Prof. Masayo Ave (MasayoAve Creation), Maria Aiolova (Terreform ONE), Prof. Alison Brooks (Alison Brooks Architects), Prof. Farshid Moussavi (FMA), Prof. Barbara Holzer (Holzer Kobler Architekturen),Prof. Ben van Berkel (UNStudio, Harvard University’s GSD), Hani Rashid (Asymptote,Studio_Hani Rashid),and Amandus Samsøe Sattler (Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten)

Schedule
Registration opens in June 2022
Project submission deadline: February 2, 2023
Jury deliberation: February 2023
Announcement of winners: March 2023
Awards ceremony 2023: autumn, 2023
UTC time zone for all dates.
Please follow the awards’s official website for possible schedule changes.

Categories
(1) Product Design
Products of all scales and types: eg. industrial products, household goods, tools as well as. Exemplary projects submitted to this category in the previous editions: Deployable emergency shelter (Henry Glogau Studio) that can save lives in changing weather conditions in Alaska, or a bicycle wheel (Kristen Tapping) that filters outdoor air pollution.

(2) Architectural Design
Buildings, landscaping, and small forms that bring change to their surroundings. Examples from the previous editions are: The waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen (BIG), which is an urban recreation centre with a nature park, ski slope, hiking trail, climbing wall as well as an environmental education hub or a timber bridge (LUO Studio) which pays tribute to the tradition and complements the rural revitalization.

(3) Responsive Design
A building, object, or product that are capable of reacting to conditions in a given environment, recognizing a problem and finding a solution by interacting with its surroundings and users. Examples from the previous editions are the skylight that produces potable water from salt water in the Atacama Desert (Henry Glogau Studio) and an arts centre (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) that can double its surface to provide spatial flexibility for different events.

(4) Universal Design
The designs that may not be strict in architecture or product design or are interdisciplinary or difficult to categorize into other categories. Examples from the previous editions: the house building prefabs (Urban Beta UG) and backyard facilities elements, which foster the democratization of construction through an open-source approach to building, or a set of emotions written in Braille (Walda Verbaenen) to build a bridge for visually impaired and blind people to a visual language.

In addition to the general evaluation, the student project with the highest score will be awarded the label of Emerging Designers. Parallel to the Jury’s evaluation, representatives of Solarlux will select the laureates of Solarlux Choice.

Fee
The registration fees (specified on the website) support the statutory activity of the Laka Foundation (non-governmental & nonprofit organization). At the Design Educates Awards, we will never charge you any hidden costs. The only fee is the registration fee visible during the registration and User Panel. If you decide to submit more entries, discounts are applicable (you will see the discount amount during the registration).

Follow our social channels for seasonal discounts, and note that the price depends on the date you pay for your registration – the earlier, the lower the participation fee. To activate a discount just add your entry as normal, coupon bonus can be added from the ‘entries list’ level in your User Panel profile.  There is also extra bonus when submitting many entries or for many categories. In both cases, the prize will be automatically recalculated.

Basic registration fee per entry [USD]:
Individual student: 100
Team of students: 125
Individual professional: 250
Company > 10 employees: 300
Company 11 – 100 employees: 350
Company 100+ employees: 600
Please check seasonal discounts for entry available on the main page and User Panel.

Organizer & Partners
The host of the Design Educates Awards is Laka Foundation, a non-profit organization and a worldwide network focused on social impact via design and architecture. It was founded in 2017 by Damian Przybyła and Rafał Przybyła. The Foundation is a crucial part of Laka’s network as it shares the vision of architecture that helps develop sustainable and safe societies through responsible and collaborative design.

Contact the organizer at hello@designeducates.com

Strategic Partner:
Solarlux GmbH (www.solarlux.com)

Media Sponsors:
Archdaily (www.archdaily.com)
designboom (www.designboom.com)
Architecture in Foyer (www.architektur-im-foyer.com)
Laka Perspectives (www.lakaperspectives.com)

Media Partners:
Architonic (www.architonic.com)
World Architecture Community (www.worldarchitecture.org)
TOPYS (www.topys.cn) 
STIRworld (www.stirworld.com)
Chinese-Architects (www.chinese-architects.com)
World-Architects (www.world-architects.com) 

International Newswire Partner:
v2com-newswire (www.v2com-newswire.com)