im2026 İçmimarlık Öğrencileri Proje Yarışması

im2026 İçmimarlık Öğrencileri Proje Yarışması is the ninth annual project competition organized by the TMMOB Chamber of Interior Architects and hosted this year by Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University’s Department of Interior Architecture. It evaluates interior-architecture, furniture and lighting projects produced during the 2025–2026 academic year rather than asking entrants to answer a single new site brief.

Competition at a glance

Categories and eligibility

The five categories are first-year, second-year, third-year and fourth-year studio work, plus furniture/lighting design. Entrants must be main-major undergraduate students in Interior Architecture or Interior Architecture and Environmental Design programmes recognized by YÖK in Türkiye or the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Projects may be individual or team entries, with no more than three students per team. Multiple entries are allowed.

Submission requirements

The signed Student Approval Form is mandatory. The published rules state that a submission without it will not be accepted, and departures from the board, anonymity or file conditions are grounds for disqualification.

Schedule

Awards and approximate USD values

Each category offers TRY 20,000 first prize (about USD 402), TRY 13,500 second prize (about USD 271), TRY 10,000 third prize (about USD 201), and three TRY 7,000 mentions (about USD 141 each). That is TRY 64,500 per category, or TRY 322,500 across five categories (about USD 6,484). Conversions use the 23 October 2026 reference of USD 1 = TRY 49.738 and are indicative only.

Projects passing pre-screening receive certificates. Awarded projects are to be included in a digital competition book and exhibition. The rules add a material condition: enrolled winners must be members of İÇMO Genç to receive their awards, while 2025–2026 graduates must be members of the TMMOB Chamber of Interior Architects.

Jury process and published criteria

Each category has a separate jury. In the first stage, seven jurors vote accept or reject, with at least four acceptances required to advance. In the second stage, originality, construction, presentation and design process are scored and twelve projects advance. The final stage is a live digital jury meeting. The rules describe jurors as primarily interior-architecture academics joined by experienced professionals, but individual names and biographies were not published on the pages reviewed by ArchUp.

Rights and organizer record

The rules state that publication and printing rights for entered projects belong to the host department and the TMMOB Chamber of Interior Architects. They do not further define term, territory, exclusivity or commercial reuse on the public page, so entrants should clarify that scope before submission. The event is the ninth edition of an annual chamber-run programme, with category-specific evaluation and a public digital exhibition and colloquium.

✦ ArchUp Competition Review

im2026 is useful less as an isolated design brief than as a structured review of work already produced inside accredited studios. Its five categories avoid comparing first-year exercises directly with advanced projects, while the staged jury and explicit file rules make the evaluation route relatively legible.

The main constraints are geographic and institutional: eligibility is limited to recognized programmes in Türkiye and Northern Cyprus, the report must be in Turkish, and award payment depends on chamber-related membership. Students should also weigh the broad publication-and-printing rights clause and the missing closing hour before submitting.

Related competitions — Editors’ selection

For related archive reading, Design Circle’s Art Gallery Competition focuses on spatial experience for exhibition, while Persian Garden Suite connects interior atmosphere with hospitality and landscape.