About the Competition
2025 Design Challenge
How to Enter
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2025 Design Challenge

2025 DESIGN CHALLENGE

What would you design to help everyone feel at home in your community?

Home is so much more than shelter. It is where we seek belonging, comfort, and safety. Designers shape our sense of home through the spaces, products, and experiences that surround us. But home also extends beyond physical walls. Designers, urban planners, policy makers, and community members all contribute to how we experience home through the broader built environment and social systems. These designs have the power to connect us to the past and inspire a more welcoming future.

The 2025 National High School Design Competition challenges students to use design to help everyone feel at home in their communities. Think about small tweaks that can improve daily life or larger changes that can have a broad impact. Draw on your unique experiences and knowledge of your community—whether it’s your neighborhood, school, social group, or another element of your life. You might address topics like comfort, unstable housing, environmental impacts, or accessibility. Consider various design approaches, including architecture, urban planning, user interface design, fashion, product design, and more.

Create a sketch that communicates your idea and describe how your design addresses the challenge question. Review how to enter and use these resources to start thinking like a designer! Explore Cooper Hewitt’s Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial to see how designers, architects, artists, and their collaborators are exploring and expanding the idea of home today.

Who Can Enter

The design competition is open to all teens ages 13 through 19 who are high school students in grades 9 through 12, or who are homeschooled students working toward a high school degree anywhere in the United States. You can enter as an individual or as a team of up to three people. Review the competition rules and conditions, which will be released by January 6, 2025, for complete information on eligibility.

The Selection Process

The National High School Design Competition is organized in two stages. In Stage One, competitors will create and submit their design ideas per the entry requirements. Cooper Hewitt will select finalists to proceed to Stage Two of the Design Competition. All Stage One entries will be judged anonymously.

During Stage Two, the finalists will finalize their designs according to the requirements in the National High School Design Competition: Stage Two Brief document, which will be sent only to the selected finalists. Then, finalists will participate in a series of mentoring activities and present their designs virtually to the judges.

ENTRY DEADLINE

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2025, 11:59 P.M. (EASTERN TIME)

The entry period will be open from January 6 to February 10, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Time), but you can start working on your design now! Learn more about how to enter. Email us at DesignCompetition@si.edu to be notified when the submission portal opens.

Selection Criteria

Entries will be evaluated for overall design excellence according to the following criteria:

  • Innovation: How creative and original is the design?
  • Impact: Large or small, what is the impact of the design?
  • Relevance: How does the design make your community feel more like home for everyone?
  • Communication: How clear is the design idea from the sketch and question responses?

Additional criteria for the judging will be shared with finalists in the Stage Two Brief document and will include clarity of final presentation and materials, along with sportsmanship.

Awards and Prizes

Winner (1):

  • The winner will receive a custom design gift package valued at approximately $500.00 from SHOP Cooper Hewitt.
  • The winner will receive a complimentary Family Membership to Cooper Hewitt.

Finalists:

  • Mentor Call (Virtual): In April 2025, finalists will receive initial feedback from an assigned mentor during an hour-long virtual Zoom meeting or phone call. (Zoom’s privacy policy is available here: https://zoom.us/educationalprivacy)
  • Trip to attend Mentor Weekend (In-person): In May 2025, finalists will attend an in-person Mentor Weekend. (Domestic travel and accommodations provided.)
  • Judging Weekend (Virtual): In June 2025, finalists will participate in a virtual Judging Weekend on Zoom to learn more about design and present their designs live to a diverse panel of creative experts.
  • Finalists’ designs will be featured in a special online exhibition celebrating the creativity of promising young designers on the Cooper Hewitt website.

Honorable Mentions:

  • The designs of all finalists and honorable mentions will be displayed on the Cooper Hewitt website to celebrate the creativity of promising young designers.

Finalist activities are required. Domestic travel and accommodations for the Mentor Weekend will be provided for each finalist and one parent or guardian. If finalists are part of a team, one parent or guardian chaperone will accompany the team. Review the competition rules and conditions, which will be released by January 6, 2025, for complete information.

2025 Special Thanks

Design learning at Cooper Hewitt is made possible by Adobe and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Generous support is also provided by the Hirsch Family Foundation, the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The Pinkerton Foundation, PwC Charitable Foundation, the Richard and Jean Coyne Family Foundation, Siegel Family Endowment, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Together We Thrive initiatives.