SPACE10 Launches Global AI Design Competition Regenerative Futures is an open invitation for everyone to envision the home of the future through generative AI tools

Research and design lab SPACE10 launches a global design competition to reimagine home — using AI. Over the past year, generative AI tools have enhanced imaginative and creative capabilities, allowing millions of people to visualise worlds beyond those we ever thought possible.

In a first of its kind competition, SPACE10 challenges participants to apply new AI tools to future homes and cities. Regenerative Futures is part competition, part open-source research, and open to everyone. The competition encourages play and imagination to create visual concepts of future homes, communities, and cities that help address some of the biggest challenges facing everyday life.

'As global populations are changing as a result of climate impacts, migration, and resource scarcity, we must not only think differently about our future homes, not only in terms of design and function, but how they can replenish and restore the world around us. Innovation cannot exist in the absence of difference, so we’re calling on thinkers, dreamers, and trouble-makers from diverse backgrounds to share their visions of the future.’

— Ryan Sherman, Creative & Strategy, SPACE10

The Brief:

Participants will be asked to respond to one of the following three scenarios:

• Resilient Futures: Design in the scale of a single dwelling

As we look to the future, how can we design homes as spaces of refuge and resilience? How will they flex to sudden climatic changes, while being conscious of the land and ecology around them?

As climate events get more frequent and severe, people are forced to adapt — and live — with more extreme environments. The resilient home is one that can take inspiration from regenerative practices, Indigenous or traditional technologies, and can use local materials. Consider how it relates to its surrounding environment and location on the planet.

• Symbiotic Futures: Design in the scale of a small community

How will future communities co-exist with non-human species? And how might the design of our homes and communities nurture surrounding ecosystems?

As we approach the biggest ecological collapse in 65 million years, we must explore how our future home and communities can support local biodiversity to thrive. Materials, location, and nature’s own creativity are design considerations. Imagine a future where non-human entities become allies in co-designing our homes and neighbourhoods.

• Collective Futures: Design in the scale of a city

What would a self-sustaining city look like? How can we adapt and evolve existing structures and streets to better support collective living?

As city populations accelerate, there will be higher demand for resources like energy, food, and water. How can we enhance today’s city, its buildings, and infrastructure to provide these daily essentials? Consider the challenge of comfortably housing more people in global cities, and ways to do this without the environmental impact of constructing new dwellings. In this future, the city is more aware — and abundant — to meet residents’ needs.

‘We are only at the very beginning in understanding the potential of AI tools. This is an exciting competition that explores the reach of the global community’s collective imagination when given the chance to play with these tools, to test the limitations and opportunities that lay before us.’

— Linus Karlsson, Chief Creative Officer, IKEA of Sweden AB

Criteria:

Concepts will be judged by a panel of international judges. Finalists will see their AI-generated vision of the regenerative home transformed into a travelling exhibition, and will be eligible for prizes selected by the judges.

‘In this competition, I would like to see distinctly new ideas, not merely an average of existing ideas. A creative solution that isn’t yet associated with our notion of a sustainable home. I'd like to see visual artistry.’

— Tim Fu, Architectural Designer at Zaha Hadid

Jury Panel:

The jury panel consists of globally renowned architects, media, and AI artists. They include Tim Fu, Designer at Zaha Hadid Architects; Helen Job, Head of Research at SPACE10, David Basulto, CEO & Founder of ArchDaily; Nick Jeffries, Senior Expert at Ellen MacArthur Foundation; Javier Torner, Global Solutions Division at UN Habitat; Mawuena Tendar, Co-Founder of Standard Deviation; Dragon Li, Editor-in-Chief of Design Boom; Asuka Kawanabe, Freelance Journalist for Wired, Forbes, and others; Dominique Petit-Frère, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Limbo Accra, and Linus Karlsson, Chief Creative Officer, IKEA of Sweden AB.

Apply Here:

Participants can apply to the competition at https://regenerativefutures.space10.com/ starting 6 April 2023, with a deadline to submit by 4 May. Press package with images can be found here. For further information, please contact Sofia Clarke at sofia@space10.com.   

Other SPACE10 Projects

SPACE10 recently released a short film, Creativity in the Age of AI, in collaboration with Joss Fong and Áron Filkey, using AI models. The video travels back through history to understand how the adoption and adaptation of tech innovations have improved everyday life. It also explores AI’s growing role in the creative process, and what the history of creative tools can teach us about the future. View the film here.

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ABOUT SPACE10

SPACE10 is a research and design lab on a mission to create a better everyday life for people and the planet. SPACE10 is proudly supported by and entirely dedicated to the IKEA Brand. SPACE10 operates independently to bring an outside-in perspective to the IKEA Brand. The role of SPACE10 is to qualify new opportunities, inform strategies, build new partnerships, and design new solutions to create a better everyday life for both people and the planet.

ABOUT IKEA

IKEA offers well-designed, functional and affordable, high-quality home furnishing, produced with care for people and the environment. Today, 12 different groups of companies own and operate IKEA sales channels in more than 60 markets across the world, under franchise agreements with Inter IKEA Systems B.V. There are several companies with different owners, working under the IKEA brand, all sharing the same vision: To create a better everyday life for the many people. IKEA was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in Älmhult, Sweden, in 1943.

Contact Details

Sofia Clarke

sofia@space10.com