Competition / Drawing of the Year 2017 / Aarhus School of Architecture, schmidt hammer lassen architects, VOLA, the Danish Arts Foundation

It is with great pleasure that Aarhus School of Architecture, schmidt hammer lassen architects, VOLA and The Danish Arts Foundation announce the fifth joint venture competition Drawing of the Year 2017. This year's theme is Everyday Utopia. Everyday Utopia In 1516 Thomas More used the word Utopia for the first time to describe a perfect society, and the word has since been synonymous with something positive yet unrealistic. Through the architect's ability to dream and draw innovative solutions to challenges that are general and significant to all of us, the competition wishes to address and inspire solutions to these everyday challenges. 

We invite bold, inspiring, provocative, and innovative proposals for new ways of perceiving everyday utopia. On all scales and in all environments, from the smallest structure to complex facilities; from rural outskirts to suburban environments; from nature to expanding megacities. We encourage all architecture students to visualise dreams, to think freely and creatively without losing touch with reality. We ask for a new utopia! We accept drawings from students at architecture schools all over the world. 

The internationally acclaimed jury will award digitally produced drawings of everyday utopia that inspire, communicate and engage with architecture in an artistic way. After the competition, a curated selection of the submitted drawings will be exhibited. Digital drawings Drawing of the Year 2017 invites sketches and drawings created only by using digital technology. The competition aims to explore new tendencies in architectural drawing and challenge the use of new techniques and mixed media. We want the contestants to explore how digital drawing can push the boundaries of our perception of drawing as a craft. And we would like to encourage contestants to examine how digital drawings can express artistic skills.