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The next generation of architects, designers, planners and engineers are invited to create innovative counter terrorism solutions in the latest Home Office university design competition, announced today.

Design students from across the country are invited to propose ways to prevent a vehicle-borne terrorist attack in a crowded place in the prestigious  'Public Spaces, Safer Places (new window)' competition.

Statement from the Security Minister Lord West

Lord West said, 'Young designers and innovators are the future of counter terrorism. The standard of responses last year was very high and I am excited to see what solutions are proposed this year.

'Protecting crowded places remains one of the key challenges in counter terrorism, which is why we are undertaking initiatives like this to engage with the future architects of public spaces.

'This competition encourages an innovative and creative approach to designing counter terrorism measures and this year the focus is on mitigating vehicle borne attacks in a crowded place. It presents a great opportunity for students to make a significant contribution to protecting our country’s crowded places from terrorist attacks.'

The competition

The competition is a response to one of the recommendations Home Office Security Minister Lord West made in 2007 in his review of how best to protect crowded places from terrorism - in particular, the need to do more to raise awareness of counter terrorism measures among professional bodies, such as architects and designers.

The competition has been developed in collaboration with the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) (new window) the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) (new window), the police National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) (new window) and the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure (CPNI) (new window).

Notes to editors

The competition brief is based on a fictional site, described as the country’s largest nightclub. Students can provide solutions to deal with different styles of vehicle borne attack or provide innovative proposals that will enable site owners to verify vehicle entry at specific vehicle control points in the site (both are described in the brief).

More information, including the project brief, is available on the RSA Projects website (new window).

The RSA (new window) and RIBA (new window) will be circulating the details of the competition to their membership audience through newsletters, their email networks and in their respective professional journals.

The competition will close on 11 December 2009 and an award ceremony will be hosted in April 2010.

The competition is open to UK students of architecture, planning, design and engineering from the start of the 2009-10 academic year, it forms part of the RSA’s Design Directions student award scheme (new window) for 2009/10 and there is a £2,000 prize fund.