STUDIOIOIO is a collaborative platform for Architects and Designers. In order to start your own architecture practice, you need a first project, to get your first project, you need an established practice. So, how do we solve this chicken-and-egg problem? Design Competitions have, historically, been the way to break this cycle. With pressing issues in the built environment, it is essential that Architects be empowered to bring innovative solutions to realization. By lowering the barrier to entry into practice, we seek to support scalable positive change in our industry.
Title:
London Urban Retreat
Organization:
non-a
Link:
Cost:
Fee for Entry
Deadline:
December 30, 2025
Project Type:
Prize
Typology:
Civic, Adaptive ReUse
Qualification:
Open
Prize:
€1,000 - €5,000
Location:
London, UK
Description:
This open call invites designers to reimagine London’s Haggerston Public Baths—an abandoned Edwardian bathhouse in East London—as a space for quiet, reflection, and care. Once a civic center for hygiene and community, the building now sits dormant in a fast-paced neighborhood, offering a rare architectural opportunity: to design a retreat within the city, not away from it.
Participants are asked to propose adaptive reuse concepts that preserve the heritage character of the structure while introducing spaces for stillness, rest, and reconnection. Submissions should combine a fixed program (basic amenities for at least 50 users) with a flexible, self-defined component that reflects each team’s interpretation of what an urban retreat should be in 2025. The competition encourages careful attention to spatial atmosphere, material choices, and transitions from public to private experience.
Part of Non‑A’s Antipodes Series, the London Urban Retreat stands in deliberate contrast to its sister competition on New Zealand’s Antipodes Island. Together, the two calls explore duality in architectural thinking—from urban density to remote wilderness. Teams may submit to one or both competitions.