Vision 2127: The Future by Design
Over the next century, designers and planners will grapple with many significant challenges—ranging from climate adaptation and resource stewardship to matters of equity, identity, governance, and human well-being.
- How might buildings, landscapes, and cities function as living infrastructure?
- How will artificial intelligence, biotechnology, advanced materials, and autonomous systems transform the ways cities are designed, constructed, governed, and maintained?
- How can energy systems become abundant and carbon-negative?
As part of the CAP Centennial Celebration, honoring 100 years of built environment education in Colorado, we are proud to announce an interdisciplinary student competition that looks ahead to the challenges and opportunities the next 100 years will bring for the built environment.
Interdisciplinary Student Competition
Vision 2127: The Future by Design is an interdisciplinary student competition with cash prizes for winning entries and culminating in the second annual dean’s featured voices event, a colloquium exploring the future of the built environment.
Cash Prizes
*Prizes will be awarded to the team and divided among the total number of team members.
Join the Competition
1. Submit an Interest Form
First, each individual participant should submit an interest form by Monday, September 7, 2026.
2. Find a Team
Form an interdisciplinary team of two or more currently enrolled students (undergraduate, graduate, and PhD) representing at least two CAP disciplines.
If you would like help in finding a team, RSVP to attend the Rapid Roundtable networking opportunity.
Find a Team! Rapid Roundtable Networking
Friday, September 11, 2026
Noon - 1 p.m.
Room 3301
Take advantage of this opportunity for meet other students who would like to participate, discuss preliminary ideas, and form teams. Lunch will be provided.
3. Register your Interdisciplinary Team for the Competition
Once your team has formed, each team should also submit one team registration form no later than September 30, 2026.
Competition Prompt
Imagine the year 2127.
What current crises have been resolved? What new conditions, possibilities, and responsibilities have emerged? How do people live, work, learn, move, gather, and thrive? What role does the built environment play in supporting human, planetary, or interplanetary prosperity and welfare?
Participants are asked to think boldly and envision a context in which to plan, design, and shape habitable spaces and places. Proposals must demonstrate interdisciplinary thinking by integrating multiple perspectives, potentially including urban design, urban and regional planning, architecture, landscape architecture, historic preservation, interior design, and other fields. Submissions may include infrastructure, adaptive reuse and preservation of existing places, the redevelopment of sites and districts, or the design of new buildings, public spaces, systems, and networks.
Projects should demonstrate how these interventions interact within a broader context of ecological systems, mobility and transportation networks, resource flows, cultural heritage, community life, and long-term environmental, social, and economic resilience. The goal is to propose a holistic vision that considers how the built environment will meet the needs of communities within the context you propose may exist in 2127.
Project Considerations
How to Participate
Important Deadlines
| Dates | Deadlines and Events |
| September 7 | Individual participants submit an interest form |
| September 11 | Optional Rapid Roundtable networking to find a team |
| September 30 | Each team submits one competition registration form |
| September – December | Students work in consultation with mentor |
| January 15 | Workshop with charrette and feedback |
| March 1 | Final competition submissions due |
| March 1 - 7 | Teams install entries in the second floor gallery |
| March 8 – April 30 | Showcase of competition entries |
| March 17 | Morning: Jury reviews Afternoon: Public viewing before the colloquium 5 p.m.: Reception in the Terrace Room at Lawrence Street Center 6 p.m.: Winners Announced at the colloquium event |
| April 22 | Winners will be honored at the CAP Centennial Celebration at St. Catejan's on the Auraria Campus from 5 – 7:30 p.m. |
| May Date TBD | Recognition at CAP Spring Celebration and Award Ceremony |
Requirements for Competition Entries
Because we believe the future of the built environment is interdisciplinary, we are constantly seeking ways to connect each of our areas of study within CAP. So as we look ahead at the next 100 years, what becomes possible when we bring together different disciplines to address challenges of the next 100 years?
You will find the competition details and requirements below, but begin thinking about how you could collaborate with students from other CAP disciplines to address the challenge you choose to explore.
Judging
Recognition
Winners will be announced at the colloquium, Wednesday, March 17, 2027, 5 – 7:30 p.m., LSC Terrace Room.