This year's Integrated Habitats Design Competition (IHDC) 2012 is calling for design approaches that embrace the multifunctional value of working with and for nature in urban environments reports the Landscape Institute (LI).

The IHDC is an interdisciplinary process, with judges from ecology, regulators, planning, design, construction and maintenance.

Entrants must show how their designs, whether creative or built, respond to local, regional and national Biodiversity Action Plans, to provide specific habitat types and support target species, as well as prioritising biodiversity and biodiverse habitats generally.

Designs should take a long-term approach that incorporates the possibility of changes in temperature, rainfall and sea levels, flash flooding, air quality and wind patterns as a result of climate change. Entrants are also asked to illustrate how designing for nature also supports better water and energy management in a development.

There are three entry categories in 2012:

Category 1 | Best Implemented Project + 3 Years
1st £1,000 | 2nd £750 | 3rd £500

Category 2 | Best Creative Design Project
1st £1,000 | 2nd £750 | 3rd £500

Category 3 | The NHM Award - Best International Project
Discretionary

The VIP evening reception and the IHDC 2012 Awards Ceremony will be hosted by the Natural History Museum, IHDC 2012 Host Partner, in the Darwin Centre on 15th October 2012.

An exhibition of the winning work will be in the Darwin Centre for two weeks, as a Fringe Event of the UN Convention of the Parties on Biodiversity, which will be taking place in Hyderabad over the same period.

For information on the brief and how to enter, visit www.IHDC.org.uk or email IHDC@reset-development.org

For more information about the Landscape Institute (LI), please visit www.landscapeinstitute.org