Open Call Design Competition

The City of Cincinnati is soliciting design submissions for the BuildReady Design Competition, an open-call initiative seeking innovative middle housing designs for two-, three-, and four-family buildings, with submissions due August 14, 2026 at noon Eastern Time.

The competition is funded by a $2 million Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing grant from HUD and serves as the kickoff to the broader BuildReady Pre-Approved Plans program. Eligibility is open worldwide to individuals, teams, architects, designers, builders, developers, and students; Ohio architectural licensure is not required. Members of jury panels, their professional partners, and City of Cincinnati employees are ineligible.

Participants may submit one design per building typology (two-family, three-family, or four-family). Submissions must consist of a single Architecture Design Board (30" x 40" landscape orientation, 300 dpi resolution, PDF format) accompanied by a concept narrative not exceeding 300 words, unit counts, and unit-mix specifications including bedroom counts and square footage. Designs must comply with maximum lot and building dimension constraints for each housing type and remain within Cincinnati's Connected Communities zoning areas. The submission form requires declarations that the work is original, that the submitter holds rights to all materials, and that the applicant agrees to competition terms and conditions. AI utilization in design creation must be disclosed but incurs no point deduction.

Submissions will be evaluated anonymously by three jury panels—Professional Panel, Community Stakeholder Panel, and People's Choice (online voting)—against a scoring rubric: contextual appropriateness (25 points), attainability (25 points), creativity (15 points), community priorities (15 points), scalability (10 points), sustainability (5 points), and universal design/accessibility (5 points). Nine awards will be distributed (three winners per jury panel across building typologies), plus one Best Student Entry award and up to two Honorable Mention awards. No monetary compensation is offered; winning submissions will be recognized at an Awards Ceremony in mid-September 2026 and may be featured in national Urban Land Institute publications. All participants submitting qualifying entries receive five points toward a subsequent RFP for pre-approved plans development, though competition results do not guarantee RFP selection. Virtual Q&A sessions are scheduled for June 11 and July 16, 2026. The City retains non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free licensing rights to all submissions for administration, promotion, and educational use.