Tag Archives: international competitions

VOLUME ZERO: LITTLE BIG LOO ARCHITECTURE COMPETITION (2ND EDITION)

Application Deadline: 30 October, 2025

LOCATION: India

The Little Big Loo—Rethinking Public Toilets invites ideas that can be used to disrupt the perception of public toilets with the most innovative and efficient solution for this serious issue plaguing our future. This necessary public utility is to be designed in a way that changes the overall outlook towards public washrooms.

The designed area can be recreational, educational, or social—a space that creates value for the community surrounding it. The space should be visualized as a prime component in the making of a community that develops holistically—a community that is competent in social, economic and educational terms.

ELIGIBILITY:

Little Big Loo 2025 Architecture Competition is an open ideas design competition with no intentions to execute the proposals submitted in any form. The competition is open to all, and students and professionals from all walks can join the competition.

The participants are only permitted to share their proposal for the competition on social media or any other platform once the winners are revealed officially. Volume Zero will also publish winners at this date and will be working with many design platforms to attract publication opportunities.

The participants are requested to submit their work in JPEG file format in 150 DPI resolution.

The file size should not exceed more than 5 MB.

The participants are requested to submit the files with their unique team code as their name.

The participants are free to use any one of the imperial or metric unit systems.

The 200-word limit for the submission is only limited to the project description. It would not include the text used as Legends or captions, layout dimensions or any other text apart from the project description.

Note: All the Deadlines are scheduled at 11:59 pm Indian Standard Time

BENEFIT:

Total Prize – USD 4500

LUMIERE EDUCATION SCHOLARS ESSAY AWARD 2025

Application Deadline: November 16, 2025, 11:59 PM EDT

LOCATION: USA

A world-class essay competition for ambitious high school students. The Lumiere Scholars Essay Award invites high school students to examine issues that matter to them, cross disciplinary lines, test assumptions, and defend their arguments with rigorous evidence. 

ELIGIBILITY:

The competition is open to all students from any country who will be enrolled in high school (as of December 31, 2025).

Essay entries are reviewed by our Academic Advisory Committee, an international panel of distinguished professors and researchers.

Free to enter and open worldwide, the award celebrates rising thinkers, sparks dialogue about the ideas shaping our future, and continues Lumiere’s mission of empowering the next generation of researchers.

Participants can choose ONE of the following prompts:

Humanities Prompt #1: How should societies determine which past injustices deserve apologies and reparations from the state?

Humanities Prompt #2: How might popular culture reshape our understanding of the world around us?

Free entry: There are no fees required to enter this essay award. It is open to all eligible participants without cost.​

Single Submission: Participants may submit only one essay.​

Original Scholarship & Sole Authorship:
Each essay must be the original work of the participant.
While participants may seek feedback or engage in discussion, the writing must be conducted entirely by the student. No joint or collaborative submission is permitted.
The use of external writing services is strictly prohibited.

Language​: Essays must be in English.​

Academic​: Essays must be academic and use formal language. Students may not use personal anecdotes to substantiate their arguments. ​​

The award seeks well-reasoned, research-based argumentative essays rather than original research papers. ​​Participants are not expected to perform primary data collection or advanced data analysis to submit.

Word Limit​: Essays must not exceed 2,000 words, excluding footnotes and bibliography.

BENEFIT:

6 winners from 3 categories (Humanities, STEM, and Social Sciences) will receive a total of $20,000 in cash prizes and scholarships.

APPLY