The University of Louisiana at Lafayette is excited to announce a call for submissions to a design competition for a new laboratory school on the University of Louisiana campus in Lafayette, Louisiana. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Learning Lab is looking for design concepts that support the core mission: leading education for all of Louisiana.  The Learning Lab is a space which advocates for curiosity, creativity, connectivity, and collaboration among students, teachers, administrators, and the community. Submissions are encouraged to break away from traditional educational architecture formulas and think creatively about how the Learning Lab can become an inviting, exciting, and inspiring environment for learning. It is our hope that the Learning Lab will serve as an example for schools of the future as well as provide resources and support for current schools in the area. We hope to receive design submissions incorporating strategic, dramatic design ideas that will follow the school’s aspirations of designing and testing innovative pedagogy and curricula that can be replicated in other community schools. The competition is broken into two stages outlined below.

 Stage One is an open competition (designing three Learning Lab Spaces). Anyone can enter Stage One as long as they have a licensed architect on their team. The competition organizers encourage multi-disciplinary teams, especially with educators. Each entrant (or team) will be required to describe and present three learning spaces and its experiences in text and in renderings and/or storyboards. Three to five unranked winners will be selected by jury, each awarded $1,000.00 USD. Registration begins August 15, 2019. Stage One Submissions are Due October 1, 2019.  If you don’t have time to commit to those requirements but still have a burning idea of a cutting-edge learning space, you can still share your ideas for competition inspiration at the competition website: ULlearninglab.org.

 Stage Two of the competition will be composed of joint ventures/partnerships/teams of architecture firms with a local architecture firm (located in Lafayette, Acadia, St. Landry, St. Martin, Iberia, or Vermilion Parishes of Louisiana) as the prime contractor, selected by the jury based on Requests for Qualifications and subsequent interviews. Each of the three to five selected joint ventures/partnerships/teams will receive a $12,000.00 USD stipend for Stage Two. Only one winner will be selected by the jury in Stage Two and they will be required to enter into a Professional Services agreement with a fee established by the Louisiana State Fee Curve for Architects. The three to five Stage One winners will serve an advisory role for the Stage Two joint ventures /partnerships  and teams. Requests for Proposals are Due November 15, 2019.

The purpose of this competition is to design innovative learning spaces for the Learning Lab that reflect a vision to create and sustain a culture of curiosity and creativity, while encouraging the use of knowledge to design a better world. Non-architects and students may compete in Stage One competition as long as they have a licensed (in any jurisdiction) architect on their team as an advisor. Registration will begin when the website goes live on August 15, 2019 at ULlearninglab.org.