Are you eager to put your architectural design skills to the test? Here are some exciting upcoming competitions that will be sure to present you with the type of challenge you’ve been waiting for. AN‘s editors have combed through our online listing of architecture and design competitions to bring you five of the most interesting competitions happening right now. If you’d like your competition to be included in the listing, please submit it here.

Place from Space. Place from Space is a design competition that explores the transformation of vacant lots in Cincinnati, Ohio into community spaces. With the goal of activating underutilized spaces to energize communities, design proposals should bring value to the neighborhood and create a sense of place, be creative and encourage community interaction, and should consider environmental impact by focusing on the deconstruction plan, re-use of materials, and productive elements of the design. The competition takes place in two parts, and the grand prize winner’s design will be constructed in 2014.

Submission Deadline: September 29, 2013.

reGEN Boston: Energizing Urban Living. Boston Society of Architects Housing Committee and Emerging Professionals Network have launched reGEN Boston: Energizing Urban Living, an ideas competition that pits proposed solutions for two Boston Harbor sites against each another to find the best ideas. Proposals attempt to reconnect citizens with the Boston waterfront and include housing geared towards all walks of life. The competition is divided in three components: Multi-Generational Housing, Public Space, and Unique City Infrastructure. A $2,000 first prize, $1000 second prize, and $750 third prize will be awarded and selected entries will be on display at two gallery exhibits.

Registration Deadline: October 1, 2013.
Submission Deadline: October 18, 2013.

SOILED — No.5 — Cloudscrapers. SOILED, an architectural periodical that claims to “make a mess of the built environment and the politics of space, one issue at a time,” has issued a call for submissions in the form of narratives, critical essays, mappings, diagrams, photographs, comics, and speculations that focus on build objects in the aerial environment, where everything is inter-connected and fluid. In seeking to explore the relationship between the built and the diffuse, Cloudscrapers encourages ideas about cloud computing, climate modification, and disaster preparedness for its upcoming issue.

Submission Deadline: December 1, 2013.

Living Cities Design Competition. Demographers predict that New York City will be home to one million more residents by 2040. Unless new residential towers are built, finding housing will be a struggle for hundreds of thousands of them. The Living Cities design competition, co-presented by Metropolis Magazine, Steel Institute of New York, and Ornamental Metal Institute of New York, seeks architecture and engineering professionals and students to explore the idea of 30- to 40-story, multi-use residential towers using steel structural systems. The grand prize is $10,000.

Registration Deadline: January 3, 2014.
Submission Deadline: January 3, 2014.

Centennial Festival of Riverboats Pavilions Design Competition. The Belle of Louisville, the oldest operating steamboat in the country, will be celebrating a century of service in October, 2014 at the Centennial Festival of Riverboats in Louisville’s Waterfront Park. The Festival Committee invites architects, designers and artists to participate in a design competition to develop a small-scale multipurpose pavilion to be utilized along the Waterfront. Entries should indicate the form, material, and fabrication strategy while conveying the design’s relation the site and event. Entrants will be part of a public exhibition at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville’s Museum District of West Main Street. Cash prizes will be awarded.

Registration Deadline: February 28, 2014.
Submission Deadline: March 28, 2014.