Courtesy of Blank Space Project
Over the last 5 years, the Fairy Tales competition has captured the imagination of thousands of participants from around the world – from students and aspiring architects, to multi-national firms and Pritzker prize winners.
Here is why, if you enjoy design and storytelling, you should give it a shot this year.
Course of an Empire by Aiden Doyle and Sarah Wan. Image Courtesy of Blank Space Project
1) Fairy Tales pushes your creativity to a new level.
Sure, you are a master at planning spaces and your taste for design is unparalleled. But do you always design with a story in mind? Fairy Tales encourages you to invent worlds that marry your creativity with a message, and allows you to rethink the way you approach design challenges. With storytelling guiding your design, you’ll never look at architecture the same way again.
A Thousand and One Nights by Xinran Ma. Image Courtesy of Blank Space Project
2) You’ll be part of something big.
The Fairy Tales competition has become a repository of the social and environmental issues that are at the forefront of everyone’s mind on a yearly basis. They capture the zeitgeist of the times in highly imaginative and sometimes tongue-in-cheek ways. The community of designers and creatives who participate each year spans more than 60 countries. In times when the world is often portrayed as a scary, foreign place, Fairy Tales reminds us all that we belong in the global context.
Leftovers Of A Dream by Dakis Panayiotou. Image Courtesy of Blank Space Project
3) Your work will be seen by an all-star jury, the kinds of people whose own work is changing the world.
This year’s winners will be selected by a jury that includes Bjarke Ingels, Daniel Libeskind, Elizabeth Diller, Thom Mayne, Roman Mars, and a dozen other of design and writing’s greatest thinkers.
Up Above by Ariane Merle D'Aubigne and Jean Maleyrat. Image Courtesy of Blank Space Project
4) Top entries will be published in “Storytelling Architecture,” a crowd-sourced book from Volume.
The publication will celebrate the winners of this year’s competition, and bring them together with the best entries from past years, for the first time ever. “Storytelling Architecture” is made possible by Volume, a new publishing platform, and will be available for pre-order in early December. You can sign up for updates here: https://vol.co/
Aishas Asylum by Chong Yan Chuah, Nathan Su and Bethany Edgoose. Image Courtesy of Blank Space Project
5) It’s a lot of fun!
To cap the competition, Blank Space will host a night at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. for storytelling and inspiring talks with the winners, jurors, and the design community. All participants in the competition will be invited to attend.
Enter before this Thursday, 12/7!
Check out the website, download the brief, then register and start creating.
Regular Registration ($55) will be open until this Thursday, December 7th, and Late Registration ($70) is available until the Submission Deadline on January 5th, 2017. All participants will receive a discount voucher for their copy of Storytelling Architecture, and two complimentary tickets to the final event at the National Building Museum.
The world needs great stories now more than ever. Your stories.