FEB - JUN 2025
SPONSORS:
Filling the Gap:
Designing for new approaches to diversion, healing and rehabilitation
Present day societies are facing a wide variety of crises, ranging from the influx of highly addictive drugs to climate change, war, poverty, discrimination, homelessness, the suppression of Indigenous culture, as well as an increasing need for mental health care and support facilities. This in turn is leading some marginalized and struggling members of society towards anti-social behaviour and crime.
While they are often on the frontline of these situations, traditional justice institutions such as police stations, courthouses, and custodial facilities are not always designed to respond effectively to these challenges facing society. As a result, many affected people are falling through the gaps.
Various formal and informal strategies are emerging to address this shortfall, from tent cities and squatter villages, to transitional housing, safe injection sites, Indigenous community centres, organizations providing access to social and mental health services, substance abuse programs, crisis centres, and diversion programs for certain criminal charges. These new typologies seek to avoid institutionalization of the individuals involved and instead try to set them on a path to healing, recovery and rehabilitation.
The Challenge
The Canadian Academy of Architecture for Justice (CAAJ) invites architecture students to speculate on these issues in a design competition for a new community-oriented building that helps to fill a gap. This involves the selection of a site in a community of the competitor’s choice, identification of the specific crisis (or crises) being addressed, and the development of an architectural or urban design solution.
Design submissions will be evaluated by a jury of justice experts, architects and industry professionals. Participants are highly encouraged to explore a wide spectrum of architectural responses from functional and practical at one end to philosophical and social at the other, including ways in which the building integrates into the community, and acts as a catalyst for building positive relationships with the community it serves.
Design Parameters
-
A community-oriented justice facility that includes program elements that are seen as contributing to help solve the specific crisis that the competitor is addressing, such as health and/or social services, transitional housing, library, educational facility, place of worship, etc.
-
A site located in a community of the competitor’s choice
-
New, adaptive re-use and/or additions to existing buildings are acceptable, as well as other architectural interventions.
Goals
Goals of the community-oriented building could be one or more of the following:
-
To reduce crime and recidivism by addressing issues that are relevant to the community such as homelessness, substance abuse, mental health, or poverty
-
To provide health and/or social services appropriate to the chosen context, in order to address root causes of criminal behaviour
-
To divert individuals away from incarceration through community service, addiction programs and other rehabilitation services
-
To bridge the gap between the community and its marginalized members
-
To give justice-involved individuals a place to feel comfortable, welcome and safe
-
To repair fractures within the community.
Through their design submission competitors are asked to:
-
Contribute to the public realm and surrounding context
-
Integrate principles of sustainability
-
Incorporate features into the physical environment that promote calm, healing and stress relief.
INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING?
PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE COMPETITION BRIEF AND READ THE IMPORTANT INFORMATION BELOW
TIMELINE & IMPORTANT DATES
Competition Launch: February, 01 2025
Registration Deadline: June 30, 2025 (by 11:59pm ET)
Submission Deadline: June 30, 2025 (by 11:59pm ET)
Winners Notified: August 31, 2025
REGISTRATION & ELIGIBILITY
-
Participants must register for the competition - please click the button below to register:
-
This is an international competition - we welcome students worldwide to enter
- Individual competitors or teams are welcome to participate
-
Participants must be currently enrolled in a school of architecture - winners will be expected to provide proof either consisting of a recent transcript or letter from the school explaining your status
-
Students who are taking time off from their studies to seek work experience but remain in the process of becoming an architect are also eligible to apply.
-
Students in their final year who might have completed their studies after January 2025 but before the submission date are still eligible.
-
If you have any questions on registration & eligibility, please email info@caaj.ca
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
Please download the competition brief to review the submission requirements. If you have any questions on the submission requirements, please email info@caaj.ca
AWARDS
1ST PRIZE: $3,000 CDN
2ND & 3RD PRIZES: $1,000 CDN
-
Winning entries will be featured on the CAAJ website
-
Winning individual / team members will be provided with electronic certificates
-
Prize awards will be issued to winners via electronic bank transfer for those outside of Canada, and by cheque for those within Canada.
SUBMISSION
Participants are required to upload their submissions by June 30, 2025 (11:59pm Eastern Time).
Click the link below to access the submission form.
JURY
.jpg)
SPONSORS:
REGISTRATION
SUBMISSION
Participants are required to upload their submissions by June 30, 2025 (11:59pm Eastern Time).
Should you encounter any technical difficulties during the submission process, please contact us at info@caaj.ca
The Canadian Academy of Architecture for Justice reserves the right to publish entries on the CAAJ website, or to distribute to other architecture or justice-related publication media (websites, magazines or exhibitions). Credit for authorship will remain with the individual (or named individuals in the case of a team submission). By submitting material individual competitors and teams acknowledge this right.