Nature and Healthy Environments

2026 Health & Wellness Student Competition topic: Creating Healthy Environments Using Principles of Nature 

The faculty of the KU Institute of Health & Wellness Design are sponsoring a student design competition to explore ways nature can enhance human health and well-being in the creation of built environments. The goal of the competition is to generate a variety of ways students can learn and communicate with others about how the intersection of the natural and human-made environments can produce spaces and forms that promote health, reduce stress, and enhance the aesthetic quality of architecture.

Competition Challenge

Find an existing built form (a building, a built landscape, a piece of furniture) that you find unappealing, ugly, uncomfortable, or in some way unhealthy for the human condition. It can be of any scale or anywhere in the world, but it must be an object or space you have personally experienced and can document through photographs, sketches, or words. The key to selecting the “unhealthy” space or place is it makes you feel sad, unsatisfied, repulsed, or in some way detracts from your own personal well-being. Redesign that object or place using principles found in nature to make it a better, more satisfying, even a healthier environment. Some examples of principles of nature might be the use of organic rather than inorganic materials, fractal rather than Euclidean geometry, or natural versus artificial lighting.

Competition Criteria

The jury will use four criteria (equally weighted) to evaluate all submissions:  

• The degree to which “Nature” improves the health and well-being of the original “Unhealthy” environment.
• The ways the designer used research sources to define how “Nature” can be used to improve well-being.
• How the designer presented in images and words the existing and improved object or place.
• A self-critique by the designer on how their research supports the design decisions they have made.

Use of Artifical Intelligence 

The designer is encouraged to use any technology or representation medium or tool they feel best communicates their research and design. If Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods and tools are employed in any aspect of the design or presentation, the designer must clearly document and disclose how AI was used.

Focus on Evidence-Based Design 

The results of the competition will be presented during the 2026 Health & Wellness Symposium at the University of Kansas on February 23. The Health & Wellness program is focused on the ways Evidence-Based Design processes inform and enhance design decisions to improve human health and well-being. We encourage each entrant to search out research, case study precedents, and expert opinions to support their design submissions. The recent book Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical and Social Well-Being by Marc Berman is a good starting point for searching out information sources. The essential question each designer should address is “How can I use the principles of nature to create healthy built environments?”

Focus on Mindfulness Design 

The results of the competition will be presented during the 2025 Health & Wellness Symposium at the University of Kansas on February 24th, 2025. The keynote address will be given by Tye Farrow from Farrow Partners Architects and focused on his latest book Constructing Health: How the Built Environment Enhances Your Mind's Health. The organizers of the symposium want to use this opportunity for students to further address mental health in the creation of architecture/design learning environments. The fundamental question of the competition is “How can I design architecture and design learning spaces to enhance the mental health of college students?”  

Prizes

The top three entrants of the competition will be awarded cash prizes of $1,000, $500, and $300. 

Eligibility

The competition is open to any student in the School of Architecture & Design who is enrolled during the spring 2026 semester. Submissions may be individual or two-person teams. There are no entry fees. Each student is limited to one competition entry. Entrants agree to allow their submissions to be displayed publicly during the symposium and by the KU Institute of Health & Wellness Design.

Schedule

December 1, 2025 Competition opens  

January 26, 2026 Competition submittals due at 5:00 PM CST  

February 23, 2026 Winners announced at symposium dinner 

Competition Submittal

Each entrant will present their design on four (4) high-resolution 11” x 17” landscape sheets in a single PDF file. The PDF file will be titled EntrantLastName,EntrantFirstName.Nature2026. The entrant name(s) will not be identified on any of the PDF sheets. The PDF submittal must be less than 10 MB in size and submitted to the following email address: kents@ku.edu