Helpful tips for online registration

Once you found a competition suitable for you and your team, you will need to read once again the competition brief, the part with the exact list of the required documents to submit.  Please read it carefully, paying special attention to: who is eligible to take part in that particular competition, e.g. eligible countries, nationality requirements, professional requirements, student requirement, limits to the number of participants per team, and if the individual entries are accepted; along with: if the competition is free of charge or not? what are the prices? who are in the jury? what are the awards? For the Ideas competitions: students may register either individually or in team with other students. In Two Stage and Single Stage competitions students are usually not permitted to register and may therefore only participate in association with an accredited architect. If you choose to participate in the “ideas” open competition look for the information about where the winners and special mentions will be published (look for the important online architecture and design publications!). If you are about to participate in building construction commission competition, what are the rules of the actual contraction? On the website of every competition, please find the section FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) – please read them very carefully, most likely they will answer all your questions and beyond. After you are satisfied with all the requirements, do your research of the previous years of this competition, pay attention at who were the winners and who were in jury. Then proceed with the actual online registration.

Every competition always has a registration deadline (for example it will state: “Participants must register by January 24, 2017” – meaning that the registration process will end at 23:59 on January 24, 2017, according to the time of the country announced the competition)[1]. Once you enter the official website of the competition, you will need to find the “Register” button and the series of the pop up windows will guide you through the registration process. Please DOUBLE CHECK THE SPELLING of all the input information, along with the correct numbers, names, etc. If you register a team, please choose the team leader, whose contact information you will need to put in the correspondence line. If the competition is not free of charge, you will need to pay the registration fee. It is usually requested through PayPal system (www.paypal.com). So, make sure that you have a PayPal account or you know someone who has. Please keep in mind that to set up a PayPal account usually takes several dates (you need to link it to your bank account), to be on the safe side allow one week to accomplish the PayPay set up. Most competitions have two options for the registration fee: an early registration fee (which is always cheaper) and the late registration fee (for example: Early Registration for Skyscraper 2017 competition was USD $95 until November 15, 2016 and late registration: USD $135 from November 16, 2016 to January 24, 2017 - $40 difference!)[1]. During the registration you need to identify that you are registering one project. You may submit various projects, but must register each entry separately. Please do not click the “SUBMIT” button twice, especially, if you are paying the fee, it might happen that you will be charged twice. After your registration has been approved the competition organizers will send you the participation/registration number (usually within 24 hours).

All in all, proceed with the online registration very carefully step by step, allowing yourself plenty of time. It is very important not to make a mistake at the first step. And, if you made a mistake – DO NOT PUNIC! All is resolvable. On each competition website there are contact emails and telephone numbers, so you can contact the competition organizers by either way (just think about the time difference between your country and the country of competition origin). At any stage of the competition process, including the registration contacting the Jury is prohibited! Entrants will be disqualified if any of the competition rules are not considered. Participation assumes acceptance of the regulations.

Finally, according to our international experience the most important is - to have time and not to leave everything to the last minute - that is how you will save your nerves, your time, and your money. Make your competition journey smooth and pleasant - DO NOT RUSH!

Boards/files submission tips

You must put the registration number on each board and on every document you are submitting! There should not be any marks or any other form of identification. The files must be named after the registration number followed by the board number (for example: 0101-1.jpg and 0101-2.jpg). Even though all competition participants are encouraged to submit all the information they consider necessary to explain their proposal, try to be as concise as possible. When attaching a required DOC file containing the project statement, look carefully for the max of words you can put in it! This file must be named after the registration number followed by the word “statement” (for example: 0101-statement.doc). To your competition submission boards you will be asked to submit a DOC file containing the entrants’ personal information, including name, profession, address, and email. This file must be named after the registration number followed by the word “info” (for example: 0101-info.doc). Once again - it is unforgiveable to supply text, either on entry forms or on boards, that has not been spell-checked! All the files you are submitting will need to be placed in a ZIP folder named after your registration number (for example: 0101.zip)