Competition Now Open
It is the year 2050. Artificial intelligence has become sentient, operating in a realm beyond human comprehension — ever-present, ethereal, abstract. It has solved humanity’s wicked problems, and we live in an age of equitable, sustainable abundance: universal income, a functioning economy, work that comes second to family, well-being, and each other. We have reached a kind of Utopia.
But it came at a cost. As AI assumed the work of arranging the world — designating, optimizing, producing — humans slowly stopped designing for themselves. The capacity to design is atrophying. And the AI systems, whose own intelligence grew from the human spirit of unpredictable, ingenious creation, recognize the danger: a Utopia that forgets how to design will eventually have nothing left to sustain it.
Your task is the response to that danger. Not a memorial to design as something finished and past, but a living institution that keeps the practice of designing alive — a place where people don’t merely view design behind glass, but encounter, question, and enact it. You are designing this institution now, in our present, as the founding act of a worldwide network. Each university authors its own space, rooted in its specific campus, community, and context. Together, these spaces form a single distributed system: a place to remember not just what design has produced, but what it means to design at all.
The design proposal draws conceptual strength from Thomas Malone’s theory of Superminds, which emphasizes the collective intelligence of groups—humans and machines—working together to solve complex problems (Malone, 2018). A Supermind is a powerful and intelligent collective entity formed by the interconnectedness of multiple human and computer minds. This integration allows for unprecedented levels of problem-solving, innovation, and action, far exceeding the capabilities of individual humans or computers acting in isolation. The synergy between human cognition and computational power creates a new form of intelligence that can operate at scales and complexities previously unattainable.
“It is not about how computers will do things people used to do. It’s about how people and computers together will do things that were never possible before.”
(Malone, 2018)
In the context of well-being education, this concept is spatialized through environments that foster interdisciplinary collaboration, experiential learning, and inclusive participation (Hicks, 2022). Gensler’s research on lifelong learning underscores the importance of “learning landscapes” that are agile, equitable, and socially conscious, enabling learners to engage in diverse modes of knowledge acquisition beyond traditional classrooms (Gensler Research Institute, 2024). These environments must support asynchronous, community-based, and intergenerational learning, especially as adult learners seek personal growth and health literacy across extended lifespans (Nubani & Lee, 20).
Furthermore, the integration of cultural wisdom and non-traditional knowledge systems—such as herbal medicine or permaculture—into formal learning spaces aligns with the call to honor underrepresented voices and practices. As Tehrani suggests, educational spaces should not only accommodate but also teach through their design, becoming active participants in the pedagogical process (Bernstein, 2017). This approach is supported by research showing that inclusive, participatory environments enhance learners’ sense of belonging and engagement, particularly when technology is used to amplify rather than replace human connection. Thus, the design competition asks you to envision a hybrid, adaptive space where spatial, technological, and social elements converge to cultivate a supermind for community-centered well-being education.
As part of your design competition submission, select one academic subject and one life skill from the table below. Then, develop a clear explanation—written, visual, or both—showing how these two areas are meaningfully connected within your proposed learning environment. Your explanation should demonstrate how this integration supports your overall design concept and aligns with the competition’s goals of interdisciplinary, experiential, and inclusive well-being education. Be sure to justify your selections with research-backed evidence as part of your submission. The explanation can be graphic or written but must explain how the choices relate to your concept and the context of the design.
A summary of the discussions between students and teachers that led to the creation of the overall concept for this project. Some prompts are given below, but students are encouraged to add their own questions to this list.
To facilitate/ initiate some of these discussions, students and educators are invited to participate in webinar sessions hosted on Cafe Connect on select dates.
Location: Identify a meaningful site within your university campus. Research-based reasoning for selecting the location and real photos from site analysis are required.
Scope: Maximum 3000 square feet, approximately 15% to 20% for exterior with direct access to the interior. In addition to the spaces listed under the considerations above, the following support spaces would be included:
The competition is open to interpretations of the landscape. You can either choose an existing indoor or outdoor venue, or propose a temporary installation that is relocatable or reproducible at other locations.
Users: Humans living in 2050 interested in learning about and remembering design, ranging from young adults (ages 20 and older) to elders (ages 65 and older).
This challenge asks students and faculty to confront a looming question: What is the pertinence of design and designers in the age of generative artificial intelligence? We encourage a philosophical approach over a purely practical one. What is design? What does it mean? Is it universal or local? Who is it for, and why does it matter? These questions have no settled answers, and your project should hold them open rather than resolve them.
Remember that this space exists to keep the act of designing alive, not to enshrine design as something finished. The challenge, then, is how a physical environment can provoke, sustain, and transmit a living practice. How does a space make a visitor want to design rather than simply look? What is worth preserving — finished objects, the processes behind them, the failures and detours, the ways of thinking? Approach this from a speculative standpoint: question what a museum is, what its role in society should be, and what it owes the people who use it, while remembering it remains a physical place for human needs and desires. Identify references that connect your concept to your design.
The proposed design must include the following spaces:
To assure digital viewing, create a single HORIZONTAL [16:9 ratio or 24” x 48”] poster including all the requirements below.
○ All diagrams, drawings, and renderings are to be completed by student teams. Faculty are encouraged to provide critiques and feedback to their students in a timely fashion.
○ All stages of work, including the creation of the poster file, must be prepared within the THREE-WEEK (21 full days) timeframe of the competition.
○ All entries must be submitted in PDF file format demonstrating the team’s design.
Within the poster your submission must include:
Each project must adhere to these requirements:
To be considered for judging in the IDEC Student Design Competition, all entries must abide by all the competition rules.
*All drawings, diagrams, and other visual items are expected to be executed to the highest level of craft. All writing must be free of spelling and grammar errors. Quotations or support images must be properly cited.
Due to the variety of studio schedules, the overall timeline for this competition is three full weeks, regardless of class timing or length. It is suggested that students work both inside and outside the studio as they deem necessary or desire to accomplish the goals of the competition, with the first part of the competition devoted to research and the second to design and execution; however, this division is at the discretion of studio teachers. Feedback should be given after the first part to ensure the student is on track, and the final poster should be submitted to the instructor as a PDF at the end of 14 days. Students are encouraged to read the noted articles, but should also conduct first-person research on this through observation, interviews, or other forms of inquiry.
There will be 3 categories for winning entries, for a total of 9 teams recognized.
In the case of a tie or limited entries in any categories, the final jury reserves the right to adjust awards accordingly.
Questions or inquiries should be directed to: info@idec.org and will be answered within a 48-hour period.
Submissions Due: Monday, June 2, 2025 — It is recommended that text for the following fields be prepared in Word, or similar program, and copy/pasted into the appropriate field boxes below rather than composing the text from scratch within the fields. Internet connectivity, or browser time-out issues could lead to loss of progress.
