Award brief

The International VELUX Award is a competition for students of architecture, which runs every second year. In 2024 the competition celebrates the 11th edition!

Students of architecture from around the world are invited to register their participation and join the community of more than 6,500 student teams  who have participated so far.

Here on the website you can find a rich library of filmed lectures, daylight talks, and articles created by architects, journalist and researchers. These are valuable resources while working on your projects; for finding the inspiration and for expanding the understanding of the importance of daylight for the life on Earth.

Register now with your name and email, and then gather your team, connect with your teacher and start working on your daylight projects. The registration period is open now.

The International VELUX Award 2024 for Students of Architecture wants to encourage and challenge students of architecture to explore the theme of daylight – and to create a deeper understanding of this specific and ever-relevant source of energy, light and life.

The award celebrates and promotes excellence in completed study works. These works can be made as works complying with the prize scope of rethinking the values of conscious daylighting design with focus on people’s health in living and working environments.

The award welcomes projects that celebrate the privilege of being a student; with curiosity and with the willingness to think “out of the box” – as well as consider the social, sociological and environmental dimension of light. The award also encourages specific focus on the existing built environment by looking at: how to recycle, adapt, upgrade or reuse buildings by considering daylighting as a driver for lower energy demand consumption and better indoor comfort. The award wants to acknowledge not only the students but their teachers as well. Therefore, teachers of the projects are also awarded.

The total prize money is up to 30,000 €. Depending on the results of the international jury, a Grand Prize of 5,000 € per category will be awarded (4,000 € to the student and 1,000 € to the teacher) for the most outstanding projects. Depending on the results for each region, a prize of 1,250 € per category will be awarded for the best projects (1,000 € to the student and 250 € to the teacher). The jury will be allowed to award a number of special prizes, including prizes for innovative use of VELUX products.

“Light of Tomorrow” is the overall theme of the International VELUX Award. The award seeks to challenge the future of daylight in the built environment with an open-minded and experimental approach. Therefore, the award seeks to widen the boundaries of daylight in architecture, including aesthetics, functionality, sustainability, and the interaction between buildings and environment.

1. Daylight in buildings

Projects that demonstrate applicable principles for providing daylight and sunlight into buildings – including the effects of building construction and context of the site, orientation, shape and dimensions, window openings, screens, shadings, interior divisions, materials and external conditions. Also looking at ways to channel and reflect daylight into deep building structures in  dense, urban context. Specific focus on architecture for health and well-being and projects that address challenges faced by cities, communities and modern societies, and where daylight and architecture can help create change through better and healthier living environments; e.g. by retrofitting and repurposing the existing building stock.

2. Daylight investigations

Projects that look at the physical properties of light, basics of optics and materials, as well as technological developments, new materials, storage or transportation of daylight.
The use of daylight in public space for functional, recreational, cultural or spiritual use and the effect of daylight on state of mind, health and well-being as well as the dynamics and temporal quality of daylight and its effects on behaviour and spaces over time and seasons.

The award is an open ideas competition and it is organised globally in two phases: in the first phase, regional prizes will be awarded to projects from the UIA member regions 1) Western Europe, 2) Eastern Europe and the Middle East, 3) the Americas, 4) Asia+ Oceania and 5) Africa. In the second phase, prizes will be awarded to overall winners.

The award is not restricted to the use of VELUX products. Innovative thinking and use of specific VELUX components as daylight providers will however be within the scope of the award and the jury will be allowed to give special prizes to the best projects. The jury will also be allowed to give special prizes e.g. for the best projects considering refurbishment of existing buildings.

The jury will evaluate the projects in accordance with the following criteria:

• The work with daylighting as a premise for architecture
• How the project is researched and documented
• How the project addresses contemporary and future challenges
• The level of experimentation and innovation
• The overall graphic presentation of the project, how the project presents itself.

Take into account that your project should present itself digitally as the jury evaluation is performed online.

The award is open to any registered student of architecture – individual or team – all over the world. We encourage multi-disciplinary teams including e.g. engineering, design and landscaping. Every student or student team must be backed and granted submission by a teacher from a school of architecture.

The award welcomes projects from individuals or groups of students enrolled as bachelor’s or master’s students during the academic year 2023/24. PhD students and VELUX employees cannot participate.

There is no limit to the number of entries from each school, but participating schools should ensure the quality of submitted study projects, e.g. by making a prejudgment.

Project submissions must be undertaken solely by one member of the team, referred to as the Team Leader. You may submit your project Starting April 15 until May 30, 2024. As part of the submission process, the Team Leader will need to provide details of the school, team members, and the teacher backing the project. 

You need to submit:

• One image file, which depicts your project
• A description of your project, no longer than 800 words, in English.
• A thumbnail image
• A Banner image

The judges will only look at the image, so we recommend you include all text on the poster.

The thumbnail and the Banner images will only be used on the project showcase page on this website after the competition has ended. Please note: No text, names of entrants, teachers, schools or countries are allowed on the Thumbnail and Banner images.

If you would like to be tagged on Instagram or LinkedIn when we post images of your project, feel free to include your handles during the submission process.

Project image file

File format: JPEG
File extension: .jpg

Layout: Landscape
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Dimensions: 9600 pixels wide x 5400 pixels high (32 x 18 inch in 300 ppi)

Colour space: RGB (Preferred destination/mode Adobe RBG 1998)

Effective resolution: 300 ppi (pixels per inch)
Maximum file size: 150 MB

Thumbnail image 

Dimensions: 1500 pixels wide x 1500 pixels high

File format: JPEG
File extension: .jpg
File size max: 10 MB

Banner Image

Dimensions: 2840 pixels wide x 1600 pixels high

File format: JPEG
File extension: .jpg
File size max: 50 MB

See image examples HERE

To ensure anonymity, no names of entrants, teachers, schools or countries are allowed on any part of the submitted material. The registration and submission system of the International VELUX Award has been constructed to ensure anonymity of the participants throughout the process from registration to after the jury meeting.

The award, presented every second year since 2004, is organised in co-operation with UIA, International Union of Architects, and the competition concept is based on UIA rules for international competitions.

Communication, photos and films of winners, winning projects, and honorable mentions will be released to architectural magazines, newspapers, webpages, and other relevant media after the announcement of the winners.

By entering the International VELUX Award for students of Architecture, the participants accept that the UIA and the organizer – The VELUX Group – may publish and disseminate the submitted projects and photos of the participants in analogue and digital form.