Registration Deadline: April 9, 2025

2025 Design for Freedom Competition

Ethical and Equitable Materiality to End Forced Labor

Schedule

September 26, 2024

Design for Freedom Webinar

April 9, 2025

Registration Deadline

June 4, 2025

Submission Deadline

Summer 2025

Winners Announced

Program & Principles

Ethical & Equitable Materiality: To End Forced Labor is a student competition that will offer architecture students to design a project using these principles. Following are the Design for Freedom Principles to guide your Design Project or Materials Research:

To acknowledge that the choices made in the sourcing of building materials have environmental, social, and ethical repercussions
To have a moral and ethical obligation to end exploitation that subsidizes the bottom line of residential and commercial construction projects globally
To understand that ethical business models reduce risk and improve long-term results
To recognize that cheap and exploitable labor stifles the modernization of the industry by reducing the need for innovation

To embrace emerging technologies that can improve supply chain transparency
To embrace material circularity that eliminates material extraction where forced labor is the most prevalent, including harvesting, mining, processing, and shipping of raw materials
To commit to adopting internal ethical sourcing policies
To engage with federal and local government agencies and advocate for systemic change through policy, law, and enforcement of human rights violations
To replicate learning journeys for colleagues and peers

Design for Freedom seeks to mobilize the full ecosystem of the global architectural, engineering, and construction professions to create institutional responses that add fair-labor material sourcing to existing and new industry-wide practices and material transparency measurements, and adopt shorter material supply chain methods to create a more humane and equitable future.

Category I – DESIGN PROJECT

Offers architecture students the opportunity to select a site and building program using Design for Freedom Principles to design and build more ethically and equitably.

Program
The design program for the project is the prerogative of the student and/or faculty advisor, but needs to reflect the ethical and equitable spirit in the Design for Freedom Principles. Adaptive re-use design projects are encouraged to accentuate material circularity to promote ethical and equitable materiality. The design ideally synthesizes site, program and material selections.

Site
The site for the competition is the choice of the student and/or faculty sponsor. However, the site should be accessible by alternative modes of transportation such as public transportation, biking, or walking. Submissions will be required to explain the site selection, strategy, and access graphically, and how it responds to Design for Freedom Principles.

Material Sourcing
Students and/or faculty advisors should take full advantage of the complement of resources available through the Design for Freedom Toolkit, in selecting and documenting primary building materials and processes used in the design.

Category II – MATERIALS RESEARCH

Allows architecture students to research material sourcing to existing and new industry-wide practices and material transparency measurements and to adopt shorter material supply chain methods (including materials re-use and adaptive building re-use) to create a more ethical and equitable future.

Documentation
Submissions in the Materials Research category will demonstrate an innovative and informed approach to materials research and selection that mitigates the use of materials and processes produced by forced labor. Documentation should be presented primarily graphically, demonstrating research and conclusions regarding materials research and selection. Documentation should focus on graphic communication of supply chains for materials that reflect Design for Freedom Principles. Graphic communication through matrices, charts, graphs, and other illustrative devices should be a strong part of the documentation.

Material Sourcing
Students and/or faculty advisors should take full advantage of the full complement of resources available through the Design for Freedom Toolkit. The focus should be on graphic documentation of materials research and conclusions regarding building materials and processes that are of higher risk of forced labor.