2026 Competition
Spatializing Justice:
Building Blocks
Program Authors and Jury Chairs:
Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman
Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman
Critical intervention into the urban field requires first recognizing the contested spatial and institutional power dynamics that drive today’s urban and bio-regional crises. The 2026 Lyceum Fellowship competition asks participants to first expose and visualize a particular conflict—reflecting on the requisite political, economic, social, and spatial processes—then design the conditions to tackle this conflict.
2026 Competition Overview
Design competitions often deliver a brief to participating students, describing a problem, a site and a program, then students follow these parameters and present an architectural design proposal. Nothing wrong with this norm! That is what we do as designers. But our call for the 2026 Lyceum competition presents a different challenge: We are asking participants to design the brief, the site(s) and the program(s), themselves, based on a particular conflict of their choice, taking a ‘position’ in the context of today’s unprecedented crises.
The competition requirements are divided into two steps:
- STEP 1: Naming and visualizing a particular conflict
- STEP 2: Designing a brief around this conflict and a set of strategies to tackle it
This means we are asking participants to ‘name’ and visualize a particular problematic, and then designing the conditions, the field of operations required to tackle this problematic, including strategies about the requisite political, economic, social and spatial processes that are necessary to confront the selected conflict.
Jury
Teddy Cruz
Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman
Fonna Forman
Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman
Additional jurors to be announced
Prizes
1st Place
$15,000
for three months of travel abroad
2nd Place
$10,000
for two months of travel abroad
3rd Place
$5,000
for one month of travel abroad
Jon McKee Prize
Awarded at the discretion of the Lyceum Board, this prize recognizes an exceptional design project that was not awarded, outstanding travel statement, and/or noteworthy engagement by a faculty advisor. Prize amount is determined by the Lyceum Board.
