The Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum (ACSF), in partnership with 2A Magazine, invites architects, designers, and creative thinkers from around the world to enter the International Design Competition: Transcendent Design and the Space In-Between.
This exciting new competition challenges participants to explore how design can bridge the material and the spiritual — shaping spaces that foster contemplation, compassion, and connection.
The following decisions concerning the Extension of Registration and Submission Schedule and Venue of the Awards have been taken. Registration Fee & Design + Essay Submission is extended to end June 1, 2026. All other conditions of the Competition, including the Theme, Criteria of design, Jury selection, Submission requirements, and funding of Prizes will remain as originally announced on June 1, 2025.
Register and Submit Your Entry on June 1, 2025
Prize Fund: $10,000 USD
Additionally, 4 Honorable Mentions will be awarded along with Quality Trophies & Citations.
Global Recognition
Winners will be celebrated in 2A Magazine and through ACSF’s international community of architects, designers, and thought leaders.
Award Ceremony
The Organizing Committee will hold the Awards of Competition Winners Ceremony to coincide with the ACSF Symposium 16 in Kyoto University, Japan scheduled for June 2-7, 2027.
Registration & Submission Combined Deadline
June 1, 2025
Reasons & Benefits of the Schedule Extension:
In recent months, the Middle East witnessed considerable challenges, particularly during June and July, when episodes of unrest produced unforeseen network disruptions that momentarily affected the Competition’s global outreach. Despite these difficulties, we take great encouragement from the successful official launch of the ACSF/2A International Design Competition on June 1, 2025, a commitment to creative world collaboration. To encourage broader representation and a more balanced global reach, the Organizing Committee has decided to announce the Extension of the Competition Schedule to June 1, 2026.
In the spirit of inclusivity, fairness, and goodwill, participants who have already advanced their conceptual work are encouraged to refine their two design boards and five-hundred-word essays for final submission, together with the required fee, by June 1, 2026. The extended schedule encourages deeper conceptual design engagement and grants the jury added time for rigorous evaluation, exchange of views, and the selection of exemplary visions for the future of the built environment and human life on Earth.
About the Competition
Our vision of a better world obliges us to encompass a deep comprehension of the critical historical impacts that have affected the world in modern times. The built environment’s lengthy history as a communicative and affective media portends its enduring capacity to serve the highest ideals and address the most vexing problems. Indeed, the built environment was often believed to provide portentous places for personal improvement and, by extension, the evolution of culture. It still has that promise and potential.
The Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum (ACSF), in partnership with 2A Magazine, invites architects, designers, and artists worldwide to submit conceptual projects that seek a vision of organic exuberance, human delight and flourishing that lies waiting in the paradigm of “Transcendent Design and the Space In-Between.”
Key Themes
Requirements
Click here to register, download the full competition brief, and start your submission today.
Register & Submit by June 1, 2026
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