While students shelter under Mayor Eric Garcetti’s “Safer at Home” emergency order, the City of Los Angeles is inviting them to express their creativity by submitting a unique and innovative design for L.A. Lights the Way, a first-of-its-kind competition to create a new standard streetlight for Los Angeles.
The deadline for the Professional Student Competition and Student Competition design submissions has been extended to Monday, June 15 at 4 p.m. PST. Participants have the chance to win an Inspirational Award and $500 or $1,000 cash prizes.
The Professional Student Competition is open to students enrolled in undergraduate (two- or four-year) or graduate programs at the college or university level, located in Los Angeles County. The Student Competition is open to middle and high school students in schools located within the City of Los Angeles. For both categories, schools must be listed as an eligible school that has registered with the L.A. Lights the Way program.
Led by the Mayor’s Office and the Bureau of Street Lighting, the competition asks applicants to consider how streetlights can incorporate new technology, include a written plaque or other space for text on each pole, and provide shade to help ease the impacts of the climate crisis.
The Bureau of Street Lighting installs 1,000 to 2,000 standard streetlights each year, giving the winner of the competition the chance to shape public-realm design at a dramatic scale and in nearly every corner of Los Angeles. The final design will not impact the standing of historic streetlights already in place across the city. Instead, it will gradually replace the roughly 150,000 standard streetlights currently dispersed across Los Angeles.
The Student Competition winning designs will be used to inspire the final LA pole design. A jury panel will judge student design submissions using the following criteria:
— 35 percent Originality and strength of the proposal’s design vision
— 35 percent Creativity and feasibility of the proposal’s strategy for incorporating the full range of programmatic requirements and optional features
— 30 percent Visual coherence of the proposal
For more information such as submission guidelines, the revised timeline for the entire competition and other details, visit
