Design Competition

NUWAO Oceania Nature-based Urban Adaptation driven by Indigenous Knowledge Design Competition.

We invited design professionals and practitioners, university students, youth / rangatahi and the general public to participate in envisioning how to develop innovative nature-based urban design solutions, rooted in Indigenous knowledge that support climate change adaptation and individual and community wellbeing.

We invited submissions of urban design, landscape design, architecture, temporary structures, interior architecture, public infrastructure and buildings, etc. The scale could be a single site or structure, up to a concept for a whole town or city.

Entries we due on the 18th of November 2022. Judging was ‘blind’ meaning that projects were considered without judges knowing names, ages, or where the entrants were from. Judging took place on the 28th of November 2022 where 77 entries we considered. Thank you to our esteemed judges: Dr Rebecca Kiddle of Te Wānanga O Aotearoa, Dr Huhana Smith of Massey University, and Lama Tone of University of Auckland.

The 14 prize-winners are listed below. Thank you everyone for your interest and very inspiring entries!

Competition call:

Download the brief
Download the call out

Call for entries to the NUWAO design competition, particularly rangaitahi / youth in category 3

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Selected works will be exhibited during the NUWAO international Symposium 20 – 21 April at the Wellington School of Architecture 139 Vivian Street, Wellington. A prize giving will take place on April 20 2023.
Work will be exhibited at Thistle Hall in Wellington 29 May – 4 June 2023. See the pre-hear of our new podcast series here too!

A final exhibition of work will take place in Auckland at the Auckland University of Technology campus in the city. Dates TBC.

COMPETITION CATEGORIES

This is an innovative approach to research and was an open call to entrants globally. We had three categories with $NZ2000 prize money available in each.

Category 1: Professional
Design professionals, built environment professionals, urban ecologists, development professionals and related people can enter this category. Individuals or groups are welcome to submit work. Organisations and companies may enter projects on behalf of individuals, however they must have permission to submit the project. Your submission must use conventional design communication methods such as plans, sections, master plans, perspective images etc. as you deem appropriate, but you are welcome to submit in any other forms you want to to communicate the project to complement these traditional design methods including animation and film.
Category 2: Student
All tertiary students who are currently studying or who have graduated in the past two years (2020-2022) are eligible to enter the Student Awards. Students can enter as an individual or group (only one registration is required per submission). If an individual is submitting group work, they need to provide credit to all team members. Your submission must use conventional design communication methods such as plans, sections, master plans, perspective images etc. as you deem appropriate, but you are welcome to submit in any other forms you want to to communicate the project to compliment these traditional design methods including animation and film.
Category 3: Youth / General Public
This category is open to anyone. We particularly encourage young people to participate. You can enter as an individual or a group. Your submission can be in any form. It may be drawings, an essay, a song, a series of interviews, a video etc. Be creative! We recommend you provide a short piece of writing to explain your ideas alongside your entry if you think we will need this to understand what you have done.

Each category had a winner, second prize and third prize. 5 honorable mentions were also awarded across the categories.

PROVOCATION and PURPOSE

We invited people to share their visions of nature-based urban design solutions, rooted in Indigenous knowledge that support climate change adaptation and individual and community wellbeing.

If you could imagine a happier and healthier way of living that supports the resilience of community and our ecologies, what would that look like and how does that work? Can design help to integrate nature into urban spaces and transform them so they can evolve or regenerate socio-ecological living systems? How can we respond to societal challenges using Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) together with Indigenous knowledges, while acknowledging, celebrating, and working with local cultural identities? How do these solutions work with the future predicted challenges we are facing? What does better living mean for you and how does that improve our ecologies and wellbeing in just ways?

The brief was intentionally broad to allow a range of visionary approaches and design ideas across different scales. From contribution we gained specific ideas, concepts and examples related to how to adapt Oceania’s urban centers to climate change by working with nature in empowering ways for local and/or Indigenous peoples. This design competition helped us to understand the issues that need to be addressed in specific urban areas of Oceania and to gauge existing understandings and approaches to the issues, while also capturing the collective imagination regarding how we might creatively adapt to climate change. The geographic scope for this competition focused on urban areas of Oceania (the combined Pacific Island nations of Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia including Aotearoa New Zealand).