PhotoGRAPHY Competition
PHOTOGRAPH: Oliver Shearer – ‘Water and Glass, a Framed Reflection’ (2024)
2026 Photography Competition: STORYLINES
If you drew the Gold Coast on a map of the world, you might draw it as a line, not a dot. It’s a linear city made up of many centres, strung along the coast and hinterland.
Cities are defined less by their buildings than by the stories that unfold within them, and stories are told line by line. This year’s theme, STORYLINES, asks you to capture the story of a building, an event or the Gold Coast itself, and tell it in a single line.
What to capture
Photograph a building you visit or an event you attend on Saturday 10 or Sunday 11 October during Gold Coast Open House 2026. Look beyond the straight architectural shot and ask what story this place tells. You might capture:
- People and place: how people move through, gather in or use a space, whether that’s a family on a tour, a conversation in a doorway, or a volunteer at work.
- Lines in the architecture: the lines that lead the eye and link inside to outside, such as rooflines, stairs, shadows, joinery, balconies or pathways.
- Details with a history: a worn handrail, a sign, a material or a small moment that hints at the life of the building.
- The building in its city: how a place connects to its street, landscape, coastline or neighbourhood, and to the Gold Coast’s many centres.
Your caption
Every entry needs a one-line caption that tells a story about the building, the event or the Gold Coast. Think of it as the first line of a story: it should add something to the image, not just describe it.
How many entries?
Enter as many times as you like. Each entry must be a single photograph with its own caption.
How entries are judged
The judges look at the creativity of the photograph and the originality of the thinking that links the image and caption to the STORYLINES theme.
The competition will be open for entries from 9:00am Saturday 10 October 2026 – 5pm Friday 16 October 2026.
The Gold Coast Open House Photography Competition is proudly supported by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (QLD Chapter)
MEET THIS YEAR’S JUDGES
Nikolas Strugar
Nikolas leads the studio Raven at Odds and works directly across all projects. After studying architecture and working in practice, he moved into filmmaking, photography, design, and digital work, drawn to the overlap between spatial thinking, storytelling, and communication.
That architectural training still sits at the centre of his approach to creative direction. Time spent understanding context, asking the right questions, and respecting the intent behind the work matters as much as the final output. Nikolas values collaborative relationships and calm, considered processes. He’s less interested in chasing trends than in creating work that feels honest and genuinely useful to the people he works with.
IZZIE WHITE
PROFESSOR PAUL BURTON, Emeritus Professor at Griffith University.
Paul Burton spent decades shaping how cities plan for growth, from London’s Docklands to the Gold Coast, before retiring as Emeritus Professor at Griffith University in 2025.
Trained as a planner in London, he built his career at the University of Bristol before moving to Australia in 2007 to take up a Chair in Urban Planning and Management at Griffith, later becoming inaugural Director of the university’s Cities Research Institute. Throughout, he’s worked closely with the City of Gold Coast, chairing the joint Urban Growth Management Committee and helping steer how the region plans for its future.
Deeply committed to engaged scholarship, Paul has spent his career connecting research to policy and practice, from evaluating UK urban programs to leading comparative studies of youth homelessness across Europe. In Australia, he’s served for a decade on the Planning Institute of Australia’s National Education Committee, chaired PIA Queensland’s Education Sub-Committee, and has been a member of the Gold Coast Open House Organising Committee since 2024.
DISCOVER THE 2025 WINNERS
Gold Coast Open House proudly acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land on which our events are held, the Kombumerri and Yugambeh Language Group families of the Gold Coast. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging, and recognise their continuing connections to the lands, waters, wildlife and extended communities throughout South East Queensland.
