Campus Competition - Wydział Architektury

International Students’ Competition
CUT Campus: Driven by Novel Approaches

Introduction

Dear Young Friends,

We warmly invite you to take part in the international architecture and urban planning study competition “International Students’ Competition – CUT Campus: Driven by Novel Approaches”. This is a unique opportunity to showcase your creativity, and vision for a modern academic space. Your fresh perspective, innovative ideas, and youthful insight will be an invaluable source of inspiration for our university.
It is you – the future engineers and architects – who will shape the world of tomorrow and design it in a wise and socially responsible way.

Cracow University of Technology, as a prestigious university of technology, aims to create a campus that meets the challenges of the 21st century, fosters scientific development, and strengthens the integration of the academic community. A modern and green campus can become not only the heart of the Cracow University of Technology but also a unique showcase of Krakow – a city of innovation, science and art – strengthening its position as an internationally recognized academic and cultural center.

Andrzej Szarata
Rector of the Cracow University of Technology
CUT

Cracow University of Technology
Campus: Driven by Novel Approaches

The Cracow University of Technology, an institution with eighty years of history, faces the challenge of adapting to changing times. While education was once based on traditional teaching methods and paper exams, today the university must answer the question of how knowledge acquisition should look in the 21st century.

The university, currently educating 12,000 students under the guidance of a thousand academic teachers, strives for development and modernity. The Campus Czyżyny offers expansion potential that could accommodate up to 30,000 students, combining scientific, sports, cultural, and ecological functions.

Planning the campus of the future requires architects to take a new perspective, going beyond classical patterns of academic buildings. Modern technology opens new possibilities for connecting architecture with nature. The goal is to create a space that will not only be functional but also become a symbol of modern Krakow – similar to how the Bilbao effect transformed the perception of that Spanish city. The new buildings are meant to be not just technical constructions but true works of art that will be remembered in architectural history.

The Czyżyny Campus

The Cracow University of Technology is the second technical university in Krakow. Like most universities in Krakow, our University also has its campuses and properties in various parts of the city. In total, our institution owns eight properties with a total area of 69.10 ha.

Our largest campus belonging to the University is the Czyżyny Campus, located between Krakow proper and Nowa Huta on a 54.60 ha plot of land. The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, and the Faculty of Materials Engineering and Physics are based here, and in a few years’ time a building will be constructed to house the Faculty of Computer Science and Telecommunications. There are also three laboratory buildings: The Environmental Analysis Laboratory, the Ultra Precision Coordinate Measurements Laboratory, and the Extreme Low Temperature Laboratory, as well as two sports facilities, the CUT Library, the Student Village and the Assistant’s House.

Subject and Objective

The aim of the Competition is to select the best conceptual design proposal for the areas of CUT in the Czyżyny district of Krakow district and its surrounding areas.
The competition is conceived as an ideas contest. Therefore, proposals should be visionary, and can go beyond the limits of current local law. The aim of the competition is not to realize the ideas, but to open minds and generate discussion about the future university.
The task of developing a conceptual proposal of a modern, eco-friendly and functional campus for the CUT that will blend with the local urban context requires taking into account distant and near spatial contexts, as well as finding various types of connections and taking a wider area or a selected part of it into the design scope. Only then can we find innovative designs that could contribute to the quality of urban space and support our city’s sustainability efforts.
Participants are to submit entries in one of four categories: architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture and “open”.
The “open” category is dedicated for (but not limited to): arts like drawing, photography, sculpture, site-specific works, the CUT’s visual identity on the site, performance and experiments – both artistic and scientific, related, e.g., to city space, new technologies, material and construction solutions. The entries will be evaluated within the cathegories. Participants decide on the categorisation of their entry, but the jury can change the category allocation on the basis of the merits of the work during its session.

Competition Jury

International Award Commission
under the chairmanship of Professor Rafi Segal

Prizes

Competition Schedule

Competition announcement: February 2025
Publication of substantive guidelines: 3 March 2025
Registration deadline & entry submission deadline: 10 July 2025
Competition jury proceedings: July 2025
Post-competition presentation and announcement of results: October 2025

Conditions of Participation, Submission Requirements and Additional Informations

The Competition is dedicated to first-cycle (Bachelor) or second-cycle (Master) students of architecture studies enrolled at universities in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom or Switzerland.
The Competition Entry can be developed individually or in a team of maximum 10 students.
The Competition Entry should be developed under the supervision of an academic teacher from the Participant’s University.
There are no entry fees.
Entries are to be prepared on 2 boards of 100 cm × 70 cm in size, in PDF format, with portrait orientation, and the written partas an pdf file, containing a maximum of 2 A4 pages of text with illustrations, diagrams, sketches.
All Entrants and academic supervisors are obligated to enclose a signed ‘Contract concerning the transfer of proprietary copyright for the International Students’ Competition – CUT Campus: Driven by Novel Approaches’ with their entry.
The submission form will be published here soon.
E-mail: campus.competition@pk.edu.pl