Memorial to the Sixth Extinction – International Ideas Competition 2026
Competition Brief
The Australian Urban Design Research Centre (AUDRC) at the University of Western Australia, in collaboration with Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL), has launched an open international ideas competition titled “Memorial to the Sixth Extinction.” The competition is held in memory of Professor Richard Weller (1963–2025), a leading thinker in landscape architecture and global biodiversity at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Western Australia, whose scholarship directly shaped the intellectual framing of this brief.
Earth has experienced five major extinction events in its geological history. The Sixth Extinction is different: it is a mass extinction event driven by human activity, one that has happened, is happening, and is also yet to fully unfold. As Richard Weller wrote, humans have “chewed their way through the megafauna of most continents and now, by grinding down their habitats for farms and cities, seem intent on extinguishing the rest.” The competition’s challenge is to design a physical memorial to this event — one that does not centre the human subject as most memorials do, but instead questions the human as nature’s self-appointed executioner.
Intent
The competition calls for a design for a physical memorial to the Sixth Extinction of any size, sited anywhere in the world. Participants are entirely free to define the scale, material, site, programme, and medium of their proposal. The brief places no typological restriction on entries: architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, installation, sculpture, monument, earthwork, or any other design form is eligible. The judges will be looking for conceptual rigour, research depth, novelty, ingenuity, and how well the design answers the brief without centering the human as the intended audience or subject of memory.
Purpose
The competition is an open ideas contest with no built commission attached. It is funded by the Kevin Taylor Legacy and hosted by AUDRC and the University of Western Australia’s School of Design. Its purpose is to generate serious design thinking around ecological loss, biodiversity collapse, and the moral relationship between human civilization and non-human life. The competition connects directly to AUDRC’s broader research and advocacy work on biodiversity, ecological design, and the urban condition. Previous AUDRC competitions, including “Future Climate Future Home” and “Business as Unusual: imagining a future Australian city,” demonstrate an established track record of academically grounded design competitions with published results and documented outcomes. For designers interested in the intersection of memorial design, landscape, and ecological ethics, this is one of the more intellectually substantive architecture competitions currently open internationally.
Requirements
The competition is open to individuals and teams of up to six participants. Eligible participants include tertiary students currently enrolled in undergraduate or postgraduate programmes at a university or technical college, as well as faculty members and working professionals at any level of experience. Multidisciplinary teams are welcomed. While most entrants are expected to come from landscape architecture, architecture, urban design, and fine arts, the competition is open to any relevant discipline. There is no entry fee.
Key submission requirements:
- Proposals may be of any size and sited anywhere in the world
- No typological restriction: any design form is eligible
- Full submission format details are available in the downloadable brief on the AUDRC competitions page
- Teams of up to six members permitted
- Contact for questions: audrc.info@gmail.com
Jury
- Julian Bolleter (Jury Chair) – Director, Australian Urban Design Research Centre, University of Western Australia
- Laurie Olin – Founder of OLIN Studio; Professor of Practice, University of Pennsylvania. Widely regarded as one of the most distinguished landscape architects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with civic works including the National Mall in Washington D.C., Bryant Park in New York, and the grounds of the Washington Monument.
- Jacky Bowring – Memorial design specialist; Professor of Landscape Architecture, Lincoln University, New Zealand. Arguably the world’s foremost academic specialist in memorial landscape design and author of the seminal work “A Field Guide to Melancholy.”
- Catherin Bull – Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Melbourne; Adjunct Professor, Queensland University of Technology.
- Peter England – Tony Award-nominated theatre and arena spectacular live production designer.
- Sara Lynn-Rees – Palawa woman descending from the Trawlwoolway people of north-east Tasmania; Lecturer at Monash University; Co-Chair, Australian Institute of Architects First Nations Advisory Working Group. Brings First Nations design thinking to a brief that at its core questions the human relationship to land and non-human species.
Fees
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Entry Fee | Free |
| Registration Fee | Free |
Rewards
| Prize | Amount | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Total Prize Pool | AUD 15,000 | Distributed among winning entries at the jury’s discretion |
| Honourable Mentions | No cash prize | Up to 10 honourable mentions awarded |
| Publication | Non-monetary | Winning and recognized entries featured through AUDRC and partner channels |
Dates
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| Competition Opens | June 2026 |
| Submission Deadline | 1 November 2026 |
| Official Competition Page | audrc.org/competitions |
| Contact Email | audrc.info@gmail.com |
✦ ArchUp Competition Review
The Memorial to the Sixth Extinction is organized by AUDRC at the University of Western Australia, a research centre with a documented track record of academically grounded design competitions and published outcomes, in partnership with TCL, one of Australia’s most recognized landscape and urban design practices. The institutional footing is solid and the academic context is genuine. The jury is exceptional by any standard: Laurie Olin is among the most distinguished landscape architects alive, with a body of civic work spanning the National Mall and Bryant Park; Jacky Bowring is the world’s foremost academic specialist in memorial landscape design; Sara Lynn-Rees brings First Nations design epistemology to a brief that fundamentally interrogates the human relationship to non-human life and land. This is not a generic jury assembled to lend credibility to a commercial platform — each member carries direct and specific relevance to the brief’s intellectual terrain. The competition is free to enter, open globally, places no typological or site restriction on proposals, and carries a prize pool of AUD 15,000 distributed at the jury’s discretion. The absence of a fixed distribution formula for the prize pool is a minor transparency gap but not unusual for academically organized competitions of this type. The brief itself is among the most ethically and intellectually serious of any open design competition currently running: it asks participants to design a memorial not for human achievement or human loss but for the destruction humans have caused to non-human life — a genuinely difficult and unprecedented design problem. For designers working in landscape, memorial, installation, or ecological design, this is a rare opportunity to engage with a brief of genuine moral weight under a jury of direct authority in the subject matter. Browse more international design competitions on ArchUp for comparison.
Final Thoughts
The Memorial to the Sixth Extinction is one of the most intellectually and ethically serious open design competitions currently available in the international calendar. It is organized by AUDRC at the University of Western Australia, a research centre with a documented track record of academically grounded design competitions, in partnership with TCL, a practice whose landscape and urban design work is internationally recognized.
The jury is this competition’s most compelling asset. Laurie Olin’s presence alone elevates the evaluation to a level rarely encountered in open international competitions. Jacky Bowring’s specialization in memorial landscape gives the panel direct authority over the central typological challenge of the brief. Sara Lynn-Rees’s background as a Palawa woman and chair of the Australian Institute of Architects First Nations Advisory Working Group brings a perspective that is not decorative diversity but substantive design epistemology directly relevant to a competition asking who and what we memorialize and why.
The brief is genuinely unprecedented. Most memorial competitions ask participants to honour something or someone. This one asks participants to design a memorial to an event in which the human species is the perpetrator and non-human life is the victim. The brief does not prescribe size, site, material, or typology. The intellectual burden of the proposal falls entirely on the participant’s ability to argue why their chosen approach answers the brief rather than simply responding to a site or a programme. This is conceptually demanding in a way that rewards research and rigour over visual spectacle.
The prize pool of AUD 15,000 is modest, but the competition is free to enter and the intellectual and reputational value of recognition under this jury is disproportionate to the financial quantum of the award.
The competition is funded by the Kevin Taylor Legacy, which grounds it in a philanthropic rather than commercial context, and is hosted institutionally by a university school of design. These conditions are unusual and meaningful: participants can engage with the brief knowing the organizer’s primary interest is design thinking and public discourse, not revenue generation. You can find more landscape and ideas-focused architecture competitions on ArchUp.
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