The U.S. Department of Energy BuildingsNEXT™ Student Design Competition (formerly Solar Decathlon) is a collegiate competition that has inspired thousands of students worldwide to enter the energy workforce since its inception in 2002.
The BuildingsNEXT Student Design Competition challenges students to design high-performance buildings that improve our quality of life through greater affordability, resilience, and energy efficiency. The winners are those teams that best blend architectural and engineering excellence with innovation.
The U.S. Department of Energy will not hold a BuildingsNEXT competition for the 2025–2026 academic year. Future programming updates will be posted on this page as they become available.
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