XYZ BIMCollective · Portugal Research
xyzbim.eu / pesquisa / concursos-ideias

Architecture ideas competitions, free entry only

The open international competitions that pass a single rule: €0 entry, confirmed on each one's official page — never on the aggregator. The platforms that live off entry fees — Buildner/Bee Breeders, UNI, Volume Zero, eVolo — stay out, with the measured fees and the source in view, further down.

6open competitions
€0entry fee, in all of them
3with a built work or a commission for the winner
€65,000the largest prize pool (Beijing)

How a competition gets in here

  1. €0 fee, read on the competition's official page. Aggregators get it wrong: Unbox 2026 was advertised as “FREE registration” in a directory and charges $70–95 per team on the official page.
  2. Identifiable promoter — foundation, university, government, professional body, UNESCO.
  3. Named jury (or officially being formed, as in 13 White Houses).
  4. Real consequence — monetary prize, construction, a project commission or a juried exhibition.

Deadlines, prizes and eligibility were checked one by one on 3 September 2026. The days remaining count from the date this page opens; when a deadline passes, the card gets marked. Before submitting, always confirm the rules on the official site — deadlines change.

What stays out — and why

They call them ideas competitions; the product is the entry. The platforms below organise competitions on briefs and sites nobody will build, and charge each entrant — the business pays for itself on the volume of entrants. It is not illegal; it is a business model. It is just not what this radar publishes.

PlatformMeasured fee (2026)Source
Buildner / Bee Breeders€120 for the advanced registration (architect) at the Vancouver Tall Challenge 2026 — an ideas competition organised with the City of Vancouver and UBC SALA: the partners are institutional, the fee is the platform's.architecturecompetitions.com ↗
UNI (uni.xyz)memberships from $9/week to $69/semester; individual entries per competition between $55 and $92, plus a 7.5% payment fee.uni.xyz ↗
Volume Zero$70–95 per team at Unbox 2026 (the competitions.archi directory advertised it as “FREE registration”).volumezerocompetitions.com ↗
eVolo$95 (early registration) to $135 at the Skyscraper Competition.evolo.us ↗
Method note: each platform's fee was read on its own page on 3 September 2026. If any stops charging, it joins the list above under the normal rules.

Scope and updates

This is a photograph taken on 3 September 2026, not a real-time service: the cards sort by deadline and the day count runs in your browser. Re-verification runs over the same official sources when the current deadlines expire.

Out of scope: built-work awards, drawing or essay competitions, and the Portuguese public competitions — those have their own radar, the meta-concurso, which reads 705 competitions from the Ordem dos Arquitectos platform, document by document. The competitions on this page are international and open to anyone in Portugal.