Architizer is seeking a talented Contributing Writer to lead our coverage of architectural technologies — someone who can critically engage with the tools architects use, analyze their cultural and workflow implications, and translate technical advancements into compelling editorial narratives.

This role goes beyond product announcements. We’re looking for someone who understands that software shapes design thinking, that hardware influences workflow, and that technological change carries aesthetic, economic and ethical consequences.

If you are fluent in platforms like Revit, Rhino, Enscape, Twinmotion, Grasshopper or emerging AI tools — and can write about them with clarity, wit and critical insight — we’d love to hear from you.

What You’ll Cover

This writer will focus on:

• Reviews and critical analyses of architectural software and design tools

• Coverage of major software and hardware releases

• Commentary on how emerging technologies are reshaping design culture

• Interviews with founders and technologists in the AEC space

• Thought pieces exploring AI, automation, digital fabrication and visualization

• Broader reflections on how technology influences authorship, practice and creativity

We’re not looking for technical documentation; we’re looking for smart, nuanced writing that connects tools to the lived reality of architects.

Job and Responsibilities

This is a flexible, remote, per-article freelance position.

We’re looking for a contributor who can write consistently and who can:

• Respond quickly to industry news

• Develop original pitches tied to emerging technological trends

• Conduct interviews with software developers and AEC innovators

• Offer informed, independent analysis

This role requires reliability, strong editorial instincts and an ability to balance accessibility with depth.

Ideal Attributes

• Deep familiarity with architectural design software and workflows

• Strong writing voice — confident, analytical and engaging

• Ability to translate technical complexity into readable insight

• Interest in the cultural and professional implications of design technology

• Experience writing for architecture, design, or technology publications preferred

• Meticulous fact-checking and adherence to editorial style

• Comfort working on a deadline

Architects, technologists, computational designers, BIM managers, visualization specialists and AEC researchers are all encouraged to apply.

To Apply

Please email the following to jobs@architizer.com with the subject line:

“Contributing Writer: Architectural Technology – [YOUR NAME]”

Include:

• Resume (PDF)

• Cover letter (PDF) explaining your perspective on architectural technology

• Links to relevant writing samples

Shortlisted applicants will be asked to complete a brief editorial test.

About Architizer

Architizer is the largest online network for architecture, with over 100,000 projects in our global database. Our Journal serves millions of design professionals annually and is dedicated to thoughtful, forward-looking coverage of architecture’s evolving landscape.

We are a team of architects, writers, technologists and creatives committed to elevating discourse around the built environment — from material craft to digital futures.

If you believe technology is not just a tool but a cultural force in architecture, we invite you to help us tell that story.

The post We’re Hiring: Architizer Is Seeking a Contributing Writer Specializing in Architectural Technology appeared first on Journal.

Showcase your visionary architectural concepts: The 2026 Vision Awards features categories that reward UNBUILT projects presenting bold ideas for the future of architecture. Take advantage of early bird pricing before April 17th. 

Long before a building is constructed, it exists as an image. A sketch passed across a desk. A rendering uploaded to a shared drive. A model photographed at just the right moment. Architecture, at its core, is an act of translation — turning ideas into something others can see, understand and believe in. Yet for many young architects, representation — sketching, rendering, photography and videography — remains one of the least formally taught and most informally learned skills in practice, despite being central to disseminating design thinking to the rest of the world.

How to Visualize Architecture, Architizer’s newest publication, begins from this gap. Rather than treating representation as a technical afterthought, the book reframes it as a central design discipline — one that shapes how projects are conceived and communicated. Throughout its eight distinct chapters, the book reinforces the view that architecture must be understood as more than the built final project and that by strategically representing their design and thought processes, architects will bolster their value as creators.

Preorder the Book

Visualization as Authorship, Not Afterthought

The book’s core premise is simple but powerful: architectural images are never neutral. Every drawing, rendering or photograph carries intention. Each decides what to reveal, what to withhold and what story to tell. When done well, representation reinforces creative authorship by communicating the values, priorities and ideas that have shaped a design long before construction begins.

For emerging architects navigating competitions, client presentations, portfolios and award submissions, this reframing is critical. Visualization is not simply about illustrating a project; it is about persuading, provoking and inspiring commitment. How to Visualize Architecture provides the tools to do exactly that.

Learning from Award-Winning Work

Pictured: (Left page) Slovenian Pavilion for EXPO Osaka 2025 by Dekleva Gregoric Architects | Jury Winner, Vision for Materials & Jury Winner, Vision for Sustainability, 2025 Vision Awards; (Right Page) Symplasma by Henriquez Partners Architects | Editor’s Choice Winner, Vision for Sustainability, 2025 Vision Awards 

What truly distinguishes the book is its use of real, contemporary examples. Every chapter is richly illustrated with drawings, renderings, physical models, photography and video drawn from Architizer’s Vision Awards program. Importantly, every Vision Awards Winner has their work published in this instructional guide.

These projects span geographies, scales and creative mediums, offering an unprecedented look at how compelling architectural imagery is produced in practice today. Rather than presenting images in isolation, the book breaks them down — showing where the eye lands, what decision an image clarifies and how it advances a broader narrative. In doing so, it lifts the curtain on the creative process, showing how everything from early sketches and conceptual drawings to finished photographs of the built work are powerful communicators, each with different strengths that lend themselves to various use cases.

A Toolkit for Every Stage of Practice

Pictured: Plaza Tehran by Mobina Mirzaee | Editor’s Choice Winner, Vision for Vertical Living, 2025 Vision Awards  

How to Visualize Architecture is designed to be used, not simply read. Each chapter follows a consistent thematic backbone that is then structured according to principles, techniques, focused themes and best practices, offering a concrete lens that ties visual craft to purpose. Readers are encouraged to move fluidly between chapters, using the book as a reference during early brainstorming, late-night deadlines or final portfolio assembly.

This flexibility reflects the realities of architectural practice. Visualization is required at every stage, whether shaping an initial idea, building a case for a client or documenting completed work.  The book meets architects where they are, offering guidance that adapts to changing needs and time constraints.

Get My Copy

Designing for Different Audiences

Pictured: Under the Fjords by ZOA Studio | Jury Winner, Rendering Artist of the Year, 2025 Vision Awards

One of the book’s most practical contributions is its emphasis on the audience. Young architects are often asked to present the same project to very different groups — private clients, civic boards, competition juries and professional peers — each of whom reads images differently.

The book offers clear strategies for recalibrating visuals accordingly. Mood and narrative for clients. Context and stewardship for communities. Clarity of intent and originality for juries. The takeaway is not to create more images, but to use the same material more intelligently — reordering, foregrounding or editing visuals to suit their intended viewer.

Building a Visual Practice Over Time

Pictured: Shelter of Calm by ELEMENT VISUALIZATIONS | Editor’s Choice Winner, Rendering Artist of the Year, 2025 Vision Awards

Visualization, the book argues, is not a one-off task but an ongoing habit. Readers are encouraged to maintain living archives of sketches, in-progress screenshots, mock-ups and field notes — building a visual memory that can be activated when opportunities arise. Whether preparing for a presentation, a publication or an awards submission, this archive becomes a powerful resource.

For young architects in particular, this mindset can be transformative. It shifts visualization from a reactive task into a proactive design strategy — one that strengthens both creative thinking and professional visibility.

Why This Book Matters Now

Pictured: “Nostalgia,” Bierpinsel, Berlin by Wonseok Chae | Editor’s Choice Winner, Architectural Illustrator of the Year, 2025 Vision Awards

Ultimately, How to Visualize Architecture is an argument for taking representation seriously. It positions visual storytelling as a professional advantage, capable of accelerating understanding, strengthening persuasion and helping ambitious ideas earn real-world support.

Beautifully illustrated, rigorously structured and grounded in contemporary practice, the book serves as both a practical guide and a source of inspiration. For young architects looking to sharpen their voice, clarify their ideas and communicate architecture with confidence, it is not just a publication worth owning — it is one worth returning to again and again.

Preorder the Book

Showcase your visionary architectural concepts: The 2026 Vision Awards features categories that reward UNBUILT projects presenting bold ideas for the future of architecture. Take advantage of early bird pricing before April 17th. 

The post How to Visualize Architecture: Get the Complete Guide To Architectural Storytelling appeared first on Journal.

Architizer’s Asia-Pacific A+Awards Celebration in Shenzhen formed a confident climax to the 13th Architizer A+Awards season, following regional gatherings in New York and Paris. Set within a city defined by velocity, the event brought together award winners, jurors and leading practitioners from across the region not only for recognition, but also for two days of collegial exchange and architectural immersion.

The celebration began on Thursday evening with a welcome reception at a buzzing post-industrial hub in OCT Creative Park — a cobblestoned area of the city where a collection of older warehouses has recently been transformed into a locus of creative industries. A+Awards winners and invited guests gathered informally ahead of the main program, using the relaxed setting to make early introductions and set the tone for a gathering defined by shared professional curiosity.

Inside MAD Architects’ Shenzhen Bay Culture Square

Friday’s full-day program unfolded inside the newly completed Shenzhen Bay Culture Square by MAD Architects, a civic complex whose expressive form and generous interiors framed the event from start to finish. As attendees moved through the building’s layered public spaces, the architecture itself became an active participant, reinforcing the idea that design excellence is best discussed from within exemplary built work.

MAD Architects’ Shenzhen Bay Culture Square (front left, surrounded by greenery) played host to Architizer’s Asia-Pacific A+Awards celebration. Photo by Zhu Yumeng

Located in Houhai, Nanshan District, the 46-acre (18.8-hectare) Shenzhen Bay Culture Square anchors a new civic core between the waterfront and the city’s high-rise financial district. Against a backdrop of glossy supertall towers, MAD’s curvalinear stone architecture deliberately turns inward and downward, trading vertical spectacle for a more topographic experience, with a building whose form is a carefully choreographed relationship to the ground.

At the heart of the day was the presentation of the Architizer A+Awards, with winners recognized across commercial, residential, hospitality, cultural, institutional, landscape, planning, transportation, sustainability and firm categories. Throughout the program, winning teams in attendance were invited onto the stage, ensuring that each honored project — and the people behind it — received a visible moment of recognition on the stage in front of their peers.

Awards, Dialogue, and Shared Learning

Keynote sessions were interwoven with the awards presentations, creating an interactive learning environment rather than a conventional conference structure. Speakers including Yuxing Zhang (Founder and Chief Designer, ARCity Office), Florence Chan (Principal, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF)), Peihe Xie (Founder and Chief Designer, AD Architecture), Xihan Gu (Co-Founder, Shang Interior Architects), Florian Heinzelman (Co-Founder and Director, SHAU), Xin Tian (Founder and Design Principal, MoA), Zhile Hu (Founding Partner and Chief Designer, WJ Studio), and Vivi Xie (China Director, ASPECT Studios) contributed perspectives that complemented the awards, reinforcing shared questions around practice, craft, and design thinking across the Asia-Pacific region.

A+Awards guests explored Shenzhen Bay Culture Square on a special guided tour.

Midday, a guided tour of Shenzhen Bay Culture Square offered guests the opportunity to experience MAD’s design firsthand, strengthening the relationship between architectural discourse and built form. As the guests saw, at the heart of the project are nine galleries totaling nearly 538,195 square feet (50,000 square meters). Rather than designing these as neutral white boxes, MAD treats exhibition space as adaptable infrastructure — robust enough to host international touring shows, yet flexible enough to support evolving curatorial formats.

Project of the Year on a Global Stage

A highlight of the afternoon was the presentation of the Project of the Year awards by Architizer Managing Editor Hannah Feniak. After each project was presented in greater detail to the audience, the respective firm was given time to share its own voices and perspectives about its work on the stage.

 Jingqiu Zhang and Lubin Liu, co-founders of IARA, accept their A+Awards Project of the Year honors on stage.

First up, the Rural Memory Museum by IARA was recognized for translating cultural memory into a carefully articulated civic space rooted in its rural context. The Chinese firm’s co-founders, Jingqiu Zhang and Lubin Liu, stated that, “To receive the Project of the Year Award is, for us, both an honor and a form of recognition — recognition that an architectural practice centered on people, community, and real life can still be seen and understood.” 

Next up, Elisabeth Lee represented a group of students from the University of Hong Kong, Project Mingde, for their work on the Duling Educational and Cultural Center, designed for the Hakka People and demonstrating how educational architecture can operate as both social infrastructure and urban anchor. As she generously put it, “this award belongs to every person who shared a story, offered an idea, or trusted us with their hopes. It celebrates the profound truth that the truest places emerge when created collectively, precisely because they belong to everyone..”

Antonius Richard Rusli and Leviandri Swady of RAD+ar ( Research Artistic Design + architecture) pictured with their A+Awards Project of the Year accolade.

Finally, the Indonesian project Aruma Split Garden by RAD+ar ( Research Artistic Design + architecture) was celebrated for transforming a dense commercial site into a layered spatial landscape that prioritizes climate, circulation and experience. The firm’s founder, Antonius Richard Rusli, spoke, saying that “as an emerging practice, we often feel like we are swimming against the tide, advocating for innovation and sustainability in environments where the path of least resistance is often the norm. This award validates that the struggle to improve our architectural ecosystem is worth it.”

Celebrating last season’s A+Awards — and welcoming the next

Architizer’s Managing Editor, Hannah Feniak, closed out the day with a message to all of this season’s A+Awards winners: “We thank you sincerely for your continual pursuit of design excellence. By sharing your knowledge through your work, you inspire architects across the globe to strive for better buildings, better cities, and a better world. Our community looks to you as models setting new bars for design. When it comes to generating inspiration, you deliver it time and again — congratulations to each and every one of you.”

Architizer’s Managing Editor Hannah Feniak provided the closing remarks on a magical evening of A+Awards celebrations.

As the final regional stop in the 13th A+Awards season celebrations, the Shenzhen celebration reaffirmed Architizer’s commitment to recognizing architectural excellence on a global stage. Bringing together award-winning projects, leading voices, and an extraordinary setting, the event positioned the A+Awards not only as an honors program, but as a platform for connection — uniting architects around shared standards of craft, innovation and design rigor across borders.

A+Awards festivities brought the architectural community together in Shenzhen through tours, networking events and a glittering awards ceremony.

Looking ahead, the momentum from Shenzhen carries forward into the 14th Architizer A+Awards, now accepting entries and celebrating a renewed focus on architectural craft — not as nostalgia, but as a contemporary discipline shaped by technology, environmental responsibility and cultural intelligence. Open to projects of all types and scales, from architecture and interiors to landscape, planning and urban design, the program continues to recognize work that advances the profession through design excellence, with an emphasis on the clarity of idea and rigor of execution.

Architects worldwide are invited to submit their work and join a global community shaping architecture’s next chapter — one defined by intention, innovation, and craft reimagined for a new era.

Start Submission →

Top image: Shenzhen Bay Culture Square by MAD Architects; photo by Zhu Yumeng

The post Innovation Meets Recognition: Architizer Hosts A+Awards Asia-Pacific Celebration in Shenzhen appeared first on Journal.

Architizer's diverse jury of global experts is currently reviewing submissions to the 14th A+Awards! Sign up to receive updates on Public Voting and spring winner announcements.

As the 13th Architizer A+Awards celebration continues its global journey, the spotlight now turns to Shenzhen — a city synonymous with experimentation and architectural ambition. Following regional gatherings in New York and Paris, this final celebration of the season will bring together architects, designers and creative leaders from across Asia and beyond to recognize the Project of the Year honorees at the Shenzhen ceremony.

Hosted at the newly completed Shenzhen Bay Culture Plaza by MAD Architects, the event situates the A+Awards within one of the world’s most dynamic urban laboratories. Long known as a testing ground for new models of urbanization, Shenzhen offers a fitting backdrop for a program dedicated to celebrating local innovation with global recognition. Here, architecture is not only built quickly, but questioned rigorously — making the city an ideal setting to reflect on where the profession is headed next.

The projects honored in Shenzhen exemplify architecture’s new era of craft: one defined not by spectacle or novelty, but by spatial intelligence, cultural grounding and care for context. Each demonstrates how deeply local conditions — social, environmental and material — can generate work with relevance far beyond its immediate site. Together, they underscore a shared belief that architectural craft today lies in shaping meaningful relationships between people, place and built form.

Without further ado, here are the Project of the Year winners to be celebrated at the Shenzhen regional ceremony — projects that embody the A+Awards’ commitment to elevating architecture that is as thoughtful as it is impactful.

Projects of the Year: Shenzhen

FW JI· The Rural Memory Museum

By IARA, Fengwu Village, China

Jury Winner, Architecture +For Good | Popular Choice Winner, Architecture +Localism, 13th Architizer A+Awards

Museums are most often imagined as urban institutions — pristine, inward-looking “white cubes” designed to preserve memory at a distance. The Rural Memory Museum in Fengwu Village proposes a fundamentally different model. Designed by IARA as part of the Fengwu JI rural revitalization initiative, the project questions the museum typology by aligning subject and architecture: a museum about rural life that is itself rural in form, material and use. Built on the footprint of a vanished village structure, the building elevates exhibition spaces above an open, shaded ground floor that functions as a public veranda for gatherings, festivals and daily encounters.

Rather than freezing history behind glass, the museum invites dust, footsteps and conversation, allowing memory to remain active and shared. As the designers explain, “Architectural craft should move beyond a fascination with objects or tools, and instead engage with local culture, emotion, and the connections — remaining grounded in social reality and real people.” That attentiveness is evident in the project’s material language: lime, timber and grey tile are reworked through contemporary craft, with hand-aged walls and charred wood surfaces that register time through touch as much as sight.

Inside, modestly scaled rooms frame ordinary objects and personal stories as cultural anchors, transforming lived experience into collective identity. Paradoxically, by memorializing rural life, the museum helps sustain it — hosting weddings, communal meals and rituals even before its official opening. In doing so, the Rural Memory Museum exemplifies architecture’s new era of craft: one that globalizes the local not by exporting form, but by making architecture indispensable to the life it serves.

Aruma Split Garden

By RAD+ar ( Research Artistic Design + architecture ), Jakarta, Indonesia

Jury Winner, Restaurants (L>1000 sq ft), 13th Architizer A+Awards

In Aruma Split Garden, Indonesian studio RAD+ar reframes the commercial restaurant typology as a spatial experiment rooted in tropical specificity. Rather than maximizing buildable area, the project prioritizes experience — using split levels, diagonal circulation and landscape to transform a compact site into a layered environment that feels open, porous and social. Restaurants, a mezzanine bar and a rooftop beer garden are woven into a continuous spatial sequence, replacing the blunt logic of stacked floors with movement, overlap and encounter.

Landscape operates as the project’s primary organizing system. Oriented north–south to preserve mature trees, the building establishes a natural wind corridor that cools interiors and blurs boundaries between inside and out. Structural elements are calibrated to do more with less: roofs, walls, furniture and circulation are conceived as a single integrated system that mediates light, air and movement with restraint. As the architects note, “By placing emotional intelligence at its core, architecture can be crafted as an ‘ecology of care’ — one that is both creative and adaptive.”

In the context of Indonesia’s rapid urbanization, Aruma Split Garden demonstrates how architectural craft can remain generous even within the realities of everyday commerce. By foregrounding section, sequence and spatial relationships, the project reasserts architecture’s most enduring tools — offering a precedent for how density, ecology and pleasure can meaningfully coexist.

Duling Educational and Cultural Centre

By Project Mingde (The University of Hong Kong) – Elisabeth Lee, Duling, China

Jury Winner, Architecture +Community, 13th Architizer A+Awards

Rooted in the traditions of the Hakka people — a community long defined by resilience, education and collective life — the Duling Educational and Cultural Centre demonstrates how architecture can operate as both infrastructure and cultural stewardship. Designed by Project Mingde, a nonprofit initiative led by students and faculty from the University of Hong Kong, the project responds to a paradox familiar to many rural communities: abundant rainfall paired with chronic freshwater scarcity. Rather than importing a purely technical solution, the design embeds water collection, storage and reuse directly into the building’s form. A cascading roofscape channels monsoon rain into a lotus pond — a culturally resonant symbol — before feeding an underground recycling system that supports daily use. Environmental intelligence here is inseparable from cultural meaning.

Beyond its water strategy, the project reimagines education as an open, collective experience. Classrooms dissolve into shaded outdoor spaces, allowing learning, play and gathering to unfold fluidly across thresholds. Flexible construction techniques and modest materials reinforce an ethic of architectural craft grounded in restraint, participation and care. As the architects note, what must be preserved is “the wisdom of contextual empathy — the subtle attunement to a site’s unspoken histories and the rhythms of nature and human life.”

As a student-led endeavor guided by professional expertise, the Duling Educational and Cultural Centre shows how global academic knowledge can meaningfully engage local realities. In doing so, it exemplifies architecture’s new era of craft — one that globalizes the local not by exporting form, but by cultivating belonging through attentiveness, empathy and shared resources.

Projects of the Year: Paris

6 HPP Ses Veles Puigpunyent

By Fortuny-Alventosa Morell Arquitectes, Puigpunyent, Spain

Jury Winner, Sustainable Multi-Unit Residential Building, 13th Architizer A+Awards

Set against the sun-baked landscape of Mallorca, Ses Veles Puigpunyent presents a new image for public housing, one that is radically local in material form and expression. Designed by Fortuny-Alventosa Morell Arquitectes for the Balearic Housing Institute (IBAVI), the six-unit complex revives traditional construction methods while achieving near-zero energy use. Local lime, stone, ceramics and timber — all sourced from within the island — form a building that reverberates with its surroundings. Each detail not only reflects the place and culture in which it is embedded, but actively contributes to regenerating that very context.

As Joan J. Fortuny explains, “The architect’s craft should be an honest process, supported by technology but grounded in the thinking, politics and culture of place. In the same sense, globalized practice, which today reaches an unprecedented intensity through digital diffusion and remote work, runs the risk of being reduced to image, forgetting the process and the thought that sustain it.”

He adds, “We are at risk of losing the identity of place, and therefore it is essential to preserve the culture of place. The aim is to create an architecture that is deeply rooted in its context, reducing environmental impact while strengthening local culture and economy.” That philosophy runs through every layer of the project: from lime-cyclopean façades to trombe roofs that balance solar gain and ventilation. The result is an architecture both ancient and advanced — one that embodies a Mediterranean ethic of material honesty, climatic intelligence and care for community.

In its balance of technology and tradition, Ses Veles Puigpunyent exemplifies the next era of architectural craft — one defined not by spectacle, but by a quiet commitment to place and ecology.

Aquifer Recharge Plant – Cape Flats (MAR)

By SALT Architects, Cape Town, South Africa

Jury Winner, Factories and Warehouses, 13th Architizer A+Awards

Set within the vast expanse of the False Bay Nature Reserve, SALT Architects’ Cape Flats Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) Plant transforms critical infrastructure into an architectural expression of resilience and care. Designed to combat Cape Town’s growing water scarcity, the project purifies treated effluent to potable standards before re-injecting it into the city’s aquifer. The design presents a dignified and fitting setting for this critical process, which takes the form of a series of filtration buildings, arranged along a man-made slope and unfolding as a procession of form and function: each structure filters both water and light through angled brick fins that shimmer in the coastal sun.

Durability defines the architecture. Brick and concrete are used not as inert matter, but as materials that age with grace, grounding the facility in the landscape and ensuring durability against wind and salt air. “As architecture drifts further into the virtual, our craft and responsibility is to return it to the senses,” explains SALT Architects. “To design buildings that will grow old well — to create places to be touched and to weather with grace, growing more human with time, rather than becoming redundant and replaced.”

Through its tactile honesty and environmental intelligence, the Cape Flats MAR Plant reasserts the dignity of infrastructure; it is a project where technical mastery is given a physical presence worthy of its import. In this sense, the craft of making involves imagining a future where vital infrastructure is treated with the same — if not more — care and consequence as more recreational typologies. In doing so, it exemplifies how architecture can transform essential infrastructure into something greater; it also demonstrates how smaller, thoughtful measures can amount to meaningful shifts in efficiency and longevity.

Hotel Elysée Montmartre

By Policronica, Paris, France

Jury Winner, Sustainable Interior Project, 13th Architizer A+Awards

Adjacent to the legendary Elysée Montmartre concert hall, Policronica’s revitalization of the long-abandoned building redefines sustainable luxury through a singular material vision. The design not only revitalizes a long-abandoned building, but it also showcases the beauty of technical ingenuity and the value of challenging material processes — even if they may seem entrenched. The 16-room hotel unfolds as an immersive study in woodcraft — every surface, fixture and furnishing was conceived, fabricated and installed by the studio’s own design and production teams. The result is a monochromatic interior that merges architectural precision with artisanal intimacy, enveloping guests in a tactile landscape of eucalyptus, brass and natural fibers.

The project’s innovation lies in its radical material circularity. Policronica worked directly with small forest owners to source eucalyptus wood, an invasive species and a massive fire hazard, transforming an undervalued raw material into refined joinery through a self-developed solar vacuum drying process that accelerates curing from an 18-month process down to just six days, while preventing warping or splitting, and thereby additional waste.

“Architectural craft is defined by integrated productive design,” says founder Julien Labrousse. “In the age of globalization and supply chain fragmentation, craft… makes it easier to incubate all stages, from the raw material source to the finished object, in one place.”

In an era when interior architecture often depends on fragmented supply chains and mass production, Policronica’s holistic process stands apart. Hotel Elysée Montmartre revives the spirit of Parisian craftsmanship for the 21st century; it is a quiet manifesto for design autonomy, material honesty and the enduring value of making.

Projects of the Year: New York City

Hudson River Park’s Gansevoort Peninsula

By Field Operations, New York City, New York

Jury Winner, Public Parks and Green Spaces, 13th Architizer A+Awards

This remarkable feat of design and engineering reclaims a former sanitation pier as Manhattan’s first public beach and salt marsh, setting a new benchmark for resilient urban landscapes. The New York City-based firm shaped the site through an intensive community-driven process, balancing active amenities — ballfields, lawns, and gardens — with layered ecological edges that expand biodiversity and reconnect New Yorkers with the river. From oyster-seeded reef balls to tidal pools and shaded dunes, the project merges computational precision with natural systems to anticipate climate challenges while enriching daily civic life. 

“Digital tools are here to stay and continue evolving. We should harness them to create the innovative landscapes of tomorrow—not only in terms of form and spatial experience, but also ecological performance and resilience,” says Karen Tamir, Associate Partner at Field Operations. “At Gansevoort Peninsula, wave oscillation and storm surge modeling informed the siting of the salt marsh — identifying an area with calmer wave action that would provide a more stable environment for marsh establishment and long-term ecological resilience.”

Importantly, this park neatly exemplifies the thread of excellence that runs through Field Operations’ broader oeuvre — one that has boldly reimagined the face of public green space in cities from here in New York to London and Shenzhen. In so doing, they have not only positively improved the lives of those living in the various locales but have also powerfully reshaped the global narrative around landscape architecture more broadly, paving the way for other designers to follow in their footsteps.

Vistalcielo

Veinte Diezz Arquitectos, Merida, Mexico

Popular Choice Winner, Architecture +Renovation, 13th Architizer A+Awards

In Mérida’s historic center, this design transforms an abandoned house into a serene refuge that not only revitalizes an old structure but also uses contemporary architectural language as a frame to celebrate a design culture that revitalizes existing structures, rather than simply replacing them. This is done through a rich material palette of grey cement, striated concrete and regional stones, which root the home in its local material language. Meanwhile, sky-blue grilles punctuate the textured walls, recalling the vibrancy of Yucatán’s built heritage. Inside, a sequence of patios and open modules encourages fluid movement between interior and exterior spaces, reconnecting domestic space with the city’s tropical climate. 

“Architectural craft today is about knowing when to step away from the screen,” reflects José Luis Irizzont, Principal Architect of Veinte Diezz Arquitectos. “Digital tools accelerate design, but true craft lies in understanding how things are built by hand, on-site, under the sun. It’s the moment where lines become matter.”

This is one of many homes that the Merida-based firm has rescued from ruination. Through this ethos, Vistalcielo bridges past and present: “We risk losing the wisdom of ancestral techniques in our obsession with speed and novelty,” Irizzontadds. “Honoring the past doesn’t mean resisting change, it means building bridges between material memory and contemporary intention.” By leaving its traces visible, their designs incorporate the story of dereliction into a hopeful symbol that simultaneously imbues neglected local heritage with a brighter future while promoting an architecture of regeneration as opposed to replacement. 

Lever Club

Marmol Radziner, New York City, New York

Popular Choice Winner, Commercial Interiors (>25,000 sq ft), 13th Architizer A+Awards

When Lever House first rose on Park Avenue in 1952, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s glass-and-steel tower redefined the Manhattan skyline and set a global precedent for modernist design and architectural techniques. Marmol Radziner’s recent transformation of this third-floor space restores this spirit of innovation, recasting the long-neglected cafeteria level as a private lounge that simultaneously honors SOM’s legacy and asserts a contemporary vision of architectural craft.

The bespoke furnishings throughout the space were designed and fabricated by the firm: the proportions of tables, chairs, and other furniture were inspired by the structure’s slender mullions. Likewise, this honed green stone, rosewood paneling, and custom carpets echo Lever House’s pioneering façade. With a close attention to detail, the project celebrates the beauty of its midcentury precedent while also reimagining the space for more contemporary uses.

More broadly, as a design-build firm, Marmol Razinger’s attention to detail reasserts the vital connection between design and construction—the substance of architectural craft. “The separation of design from construction is one of the risks to architectural craft,” notes Ron Radziner, Design Partner. “As an architect-led design-build firm, we provide clients with comprehensive and realistic information about every aspect of their project, from start to finish. Our precise construction capabilities allow us to be innovative within our design, ensuring each project is built.

Architizer's diverse jury of global experts is currently reviewing submissions to the 14th A+Awards! Sign up to receive updates on Public Voting and spring winner announcements.

The post Architecture in Context: A+Awards Shenzhen Honors 3 Projects of the Year appeared first on Journal.

Architizer's diverse jury of global experts is currently reviewing submissions to the 14th A+Awards! Sign up to receive updates on Public Voting and spring winner announcements.

They’re shaping skylines, redefining public life, and building new narratives for design. From São Paulo to Montreal, Dubai to Shanghai, the latest jurors for the 14th Annual A+Awards represent the architects, principals, and creative leaders behind some of the world’s most influential studios. Each one brings a distinct regional lens — yet all are united by a shared commitment to architecture’s future: bold ideas, refined execution, and projects that move the profession forward.

From the poetic austerity of Marcio Kogan’s Brazilian modernism to Sonia Gagné’s civic-scale Montréal interventions, this jury reflects an architecture of quiet power. David Montalba distills Californian light into refined tectonics, while Pablo Bofill and Alborz Mohammadi channel a legendary legacy into contemporary expression. Each juror brings a cosmopolitan fluency — whether through academic practice, hospitality design, or cultural placemaking — and together, they represent the multifaceted lens through which architecture’s future will be judged.

As the 14th Annual A+Awards opens to submissions, these are the voices helping define what excellence looks like — not just in form, but in feeling. The Extended Entry Deadline arrives at Midnight PT on February 27 2026. To secure your place in the program, hit the button below to get started:

Start Submission →

David Montalba

Founding Principal, Montalba Architects

Born in Florence, Italy and raised in both Switzerland and California, David earned his Bachelor of Architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and completed his Master of Architecture at UCLA. His diverse background as an architect includes over 30 years of professional practice with architectural firms in the United States and Europe, and this work has been recognized in various publications and with numerous awards, including the AIA’s National Young Architect Award in 2008, a 2011 AIA Institute Honor Award, and over 170 other design awards in the past 20 years.

As Founding Principal of Montalba Architects, Inc., David Montalba is acting design principal on each project. Believing that architecture can improve quality of life, his is a humanistic approach, which leads to solutions that are contextual, yet conceptual and visionary in their intent, effect, and appeal.

Academic activities and community involvement are integral to David’s practice, as reflected in his participation in several architecture programs, including as an adjunct professor at UCLA’s Graduate School of Architecture, where he teaches. He has served as a Board Member and Treasurer of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects and an advisor to the AIA’s Academic Outreach and 2×8 Exhibition Committees. David has also served as a Board Member of the A+D Museum in Los Angeles. He is a registered member of NCARB and a licensed architect in the states of California, Florida, Wyoming, Nevada, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York, as well as British Columbia, Canada.

Instagram: @montalbaarchitects

Filippo Gabbiani

Founder and Principal Architect, Kokaistudios

Born in Venice, Italy, Filippo Gabbiani developed very early a multidisciplinary interest for art and design. Upon graduating from the University of Architecture Venice, he began work on a European Community sponsored research project on the usage of alternative energies in architecture and worked in several countries in Europe and in the U.S.A. cooperating with prestigious firms of architecture, interior and industrial design before meeting Andrea Destefanis with whom he founded Kokaistudios in 2000.

Sonia Gagné

Design VP, Principal Partner, Architect, Provencher_Roy

A partner at Provencher_Roy since 2010, Sonia Gagné has acquired thirty-some years of experience as an architect, including 17 years with the firm. A seasoned, visionary, and top-notch designer, she has been part of the team of directors managing the firm since 2021. Sonia has been rewarded on several occasions for her leadership excellence, particularly at the 2021 Female Frontier Awards, and through numerous winning architectural competition proposals for which she has led the design team, like the Port of Montréal Tower.

In addition to being at the helm of different civic and urban projects of varying scales, including the revitalization of Sainte-Catherine Street West in Montréal, Sonia pushes the limits of an innovative approach and interdisciplinary reflection attuned to a continually evolving social and urban context. Her expertise spans the health care (Hôpital Pierre-Le Gardeur), cultural (Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion expansion at the MMFA), education (Giant Steps School for autistic students), transportation (Vendôme Metro Aedicule and Port of Montréal Tower), commercial/office space (lg2 offices), and sporting infrastructures (Colisée Vidéotron) fields.

Regardless of the type and scale of her interventions, Sonia envisions architecture as a powerful tool functioning as a catalyst for conveying nuanced realities and reinforcing the identity of a place, while stimulating dynamic and enduring citizen appropriation. Actively involved in her field, she joined the honorary committee for the annual Gala of La rue des Femmes in 2021, and currently sits on the boards of directors of Montréal centre-ville and Chambre de commerce de l’Est de Montréal. Sonia is also regularly invited as a jury member for architectural competitions within Québec and elsewhere, and participates as a guest panelist at various university conferences and round table events.

Marcio Kogan

Founder, Studio MK27

Marcio Kogan is the founding architect and mentor of the entire Studio MK27 team. Born in São Paulo’s vibrant chaos, he graduated from FAU-Mackenzie in 1976. He is a guest professor at the Politecnico di Milano and Escola da Cidade, where he earned a master’s degree in “Education, Society, and Culture.” Initially working as a film director, after completing his first feature film in 1988, he went bankrupt and had to “settle” for a career in architecture. Kogan is the author of all Studio MK27’s projects and an honorary member of the AIA, as well as a board member of MASP and MUBE. He is firmly convinced that a good cotoletta alla Milanese is more important than architecture.

Studio MK27 located in the chaotic city of São Paulo, was founded in the late 70’s by architect Marcio Kogan and today comprises 50 architects and various collaborators worldwide. The team, deeply inspired by the Brazilian modernist generation, is committed to rethinking and continuing this iconic architectural movement. Studio MK27’s projects are defined by their formal simplicity, executed with meticulous attention to detail and craftsmanship.

Kogan is an honorary member of the AIA (American Institute of Architecture), Professor at Politecnico di Milano and on the board of the Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP) and the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture and Ecology (MUBE). He leads a team of architects who, for the most part, have been working with him for over a decade.

Since 2001, when a system of co-creation and collaborative work was introduced, Studio MK27 has won more than 250 national and international awards; in 2012, Studio MK27 proudly represented Brazil at the Venice Biennale. The team has lectured and conducted workshops at prestigious institutions, including the Royal Academy of Arts, AIA, Société Française des Architectes, Clubovka, FAUUSP, FAU Mackenzie, FAAP, Politecnico di Milano, Mantova, Porto Academy, Verona, Valencia, South Florida, Rice, Texas, Cornell and Yale, among others.

Instagram: @studiomk27

Michael Magill

Global Creative Design Lead & Managing Director, RSP

Michael Magill is the Global Design Lead and Managing Director at RSP Dubai. Driving the company with his innovative vision and creative expertise. Throughout his career, Michael has won numerous awards, such as Best Architect in the Middle East for three consecutive years. Cementing his status as an international design icon.

Under Michael’s visionary guidance, RSP has evolved into a powerhouse of innovation and creativity in the Middle East. His exceptional design abilities, along with his passion for mentoring the next generation of award-winning designers, are the force behind the team’s remarkable success. Michael Magill has an artistic vision that is shaped by his love for creating designs that push conventional boundaries. His work continues to set new benchmarks within the industry, blending aesthetic genius with functional designs.

Michael‘s portfolio boasts an impressive number of high-profile projects that highlight his design expertise and creative spirit. Among his most noteworthy projects is the BAPS Hindu Mandir Complex in Abu Dhabi. A project that harmoniously blends traditional Hinduism traditions with Arabian influences. Additionally, the Nakheel Mall & St. Regis project is a testament to his ability to create vibrant, multifunctional spaces. Similarly, the Ellington Beach House is a prime example. Showcasing how his design expertise can effectively create sophisticated, yet serene environments. One of Michael’s most recent projects is the Nobu Hotel & Residences in Abu Dhabi. This project highlights his skill in crafting dynamic, high-end hospitality spaces. But it also exemplifies his ability to embody a brand’s vision, effectively bringing it to life. Each of these projects exemplifies Michael’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of design and setting new standards within the industry.

LinkedIn: Michael Magill

Andy Fisher

Founder, AFW

Andy Fisher is an architect with over 30 years of international experience across Europe and Asia. Since founding AFW in 2004, he has guided the studio into a respected design-led consultancy, known for delivering distinctive, contextually sensitive solutions across hospitality, mixed-use, residential, commercial, and retail sectors. His portfolio includes major hotel and resort developments for leading international brands, alongside large-scale urban projects.

Andy’s work is rooted in a commitment to design excellence, environmental responsiveness, and cultural sensitivity—particularly in diverse regional contexts. Under his leadership, AFW has grown into a collaborative, boutique practice that combines global insight with local relevance.

In addition to practice, Andy is an active contributor to the international design discourse. He has spoken at the Design Perspective Conference in Bangalore and was featured in Buildner’s webinar series on global design firms. He also lectures regularly at universities in Singapore on topics such as sustaining an architectural practice abroad.

Andy is also a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Society of Interior Designers Singapore.

LinkedIn: Andy Fisher

Pablo Bofill

CEO, Bofill Taller de Arquitectura

Pablo’s approach at the Taller de Arquitectura balances a respect for its history with an openness to new ideas. As the group has expanded in recent years, it has also returned to a structure more in line with its original emphasis on interdisciplinary and collaborative design. In building the team, Pablo values personal insight alongside professional experience, encouraging diverse contributions across projects. His ongoing focus on craftsmanship helps ensure that quality remains integral to the work.

Alborz Mohammadi

Chief Architect, Bofill Taller de Arquitectura

Since joining Taller in 2017, I have led conceptual and schematic design for projects and competitions in multiple countries, including Saudi Arabia, Albania, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Georgia, China, Russia, and India. I also develop independent work in Iran and Spain, focusing on design innovation. With a bachelor’s from Shiraz Azad University and a master’s from the Politecnico di Milano, I approach architecture as both a collaborative and personal practice, grounded in teamwork, dialogue, and shared ideas.

Instagram: @alborz.mhd

Jie Guo

Founder, ENJOYDESIGN

Jie Guo graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. He is a founding member of the China Luxury Residential Designers Club, Vice President of the Guangdong Environment Association, and a guest lecturer at Guangdong University of Technology. In 2019, he received the national-level DDF Award – Top 10 Outstanding Youths in China’s Interior Decoration Design Industry, and was also listed in the 2019 – 2020 40 UNDER 40 Outstanding Young Chinese Designers.

He has also invested in and built three commercial brands:‘S tea house, niconi cafe, and Joyous · Hunan Cuisine. Through a comprehensive approach that integrates spatial design, brand strategy, and business operations, he collaborates with brands to build a sustainable and evolving experiential ecosystem. Always upholding the principle of experience first, he adopts systematic operational thinking to break the boundaries of traditional business models, fostering a symbiotic relationship between brands, consumers, and spaces.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Guangzhou, ENJOYDESIGN is a professional architectural and interior space design company. Positioned as a “builder of high-quality and inspiring lifestyles,” ENJOYDESIGN offers integrated and customized design services across experience centers, urban showrooms, turnkey residences, model homes, project IP development, office and educational spaces, and urban revitalization. It also provides comprehensive R&D for standardized interior solutions tailored for real estate developers.

Architizer's diverse jury of global experts is currently reviewing submissions to the 14th A+Awards! Sign up to receive updates on Public Voting and spring winner announcements.

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Architizer's diverse jury of global experts is currently reviewing submissions to the 14th A+Awards! Sign up to receive updates on Public Voting and spring winner announcements.

Architecture can no longer be defined by form alone. It must be measured by its resonance — with nature, with culture, and with our collective future. The latest members of the 14th Architizer A+Awards jury understand this implicitly.

From climate technologists and carpenters to biophilic visionaries and ritual space-makers, this year’s jurors are radically expanding architecture’s horizons. Mitchell Joachim imagines living systems and biological cities; Khushnu Panthaki Hoof stewards the humanism and legacy of Balkrishna Doshi; Bill Bensley turns hospitality into a joyful tool for conservation; Peter Braithwaite and Daniel Chenin bring making and meaning closer together; and Koichi Takada, Song Yehao, and Emanuele Naboni advance a sustainability rooted in both local heritage and scientific precision.

What unites them is a belief that buildings should do more: tell stories, restore ecosystems, respond to place — and leave the world better than they found it. Through both materials and methods, these jurors are helping to shape a new definition of design excellence — and they’ll be selecting the projects that meet the moment.

The Extended Entry Deadline arrives at Midnight PT on February 27, 2026. To secure your place in the program, hit the button below to get started:

Start Submission →

Koichi Takada

Principal, Koichi Takada Architects

Koichi Takada belongs to a new generation of architects who strive to bring nature back into the urban environment — an approach he matured after living in Tokyo, New York, and London.

In 2008, Koichi established Koichi Takada Architects in Sydney, Australia. His mission was to bring the nature he loved as a child back into the ‘concrete jungle’ through design. His architecture reconnects humans to the natural environment, drawing inspiration from organic forms and local contexts. His architecture can be experienced through all the senses, with a signature design aesthetic that has won him an international reputation for design excellence.

Instagram: @koichitakadaarchitects @koichitakada_official

Daniel Joseph Chenin, FAIA

Founding Principal, Daniel Joseph Chenin, Ltd.

Daniel Joseph Chenin is the founding principal of his namesake studio, an internationally recognized architecture and interiors practice based in Las Vegas. Elevated to the AIA College of Fellows, Chenin is celebrated for creating immersive environments that dissolve the boundaries between architecture, interiors, and landscape. His philosophy is rooted in storytelling through space, light, and material, with each project conceived as an evocative narrative.

The studio has been honored with the AIA Firm Award for the State of Nevada, multiple Architizer A+Awards, and Chenin himself was named among Forbes Best-In-State Residential Architects. Additional distinctions include honors from the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and the Society of British and International Interior Design (SBID), reflecting a practice committed to innovation, rigor, and design that elevates the human experience.

Widely published in Architectural Digest globally, as well as in Wallpaper, Robb Report, and other leading international outlets, Chenin’s work is also featured in acclaimed monographs and anthologies, including titles by Beta-Plus and Phaidon. His work continues to garner international recognition across both professional and public audiences. Beyond practice, he remains a dedicated mentor and educator, having taught architecture and interior design for over a decade at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, while continuing to guide emerging professionals worldwide. Through leadership in the AIA, academic engagement, and global mentorship, Chenin advances a vision of design that is both timeless and universally resonant.

Instagram: @danielchenin

Mitchell Joachim

Co-Founder, Terreform ONE | Professor, NYU

Mitchell Joachim is Co-Founder of Terreform ONE and Full Professor of Practice at NYU, where he also serves as Co-Chair of Global Design. He previously worked as an architect with Frank Gehry, Moshe Safdie, and I.M. Pei.

His honors include the Fulbright, NEA Arts Grant, LafargeHolcim Prize, Fast Company Design of the Year, AIA New York Urban Design Merit Award, and Time Magazine Best Invention with MIT Smart Cities. A TED Senior Fellow, he has been profiled in Rolling Stone (“100 People Changing America”), Wired (“The Smart List”), and Dwell (“The NOW 99”).

Joachim has co-authored four books on ecological design and biotechnology in architecture, with work exhibited at MoMA, MASS MoCA, Venice Biennale, Seoul Biennale, and other international venues. He earned a Ph.D. from MIT, and advanced degrees from Harvard, Columbia and the University at Buffalo with honors.

Instagram: @terreform_1 | LinkedIn: Mitchell Joachim 

Khushnu Panthaki Hoof

Principal Architect, Studio Sangath
| Director, Vastu Shilpa Foundation for Studies & Research in Environmental Design

Khushnu Panthaki Hoof is the Principal Architect at Studio Sangath and the Director of the Vastu Shilpa Foundation for Studies & Research in Environmental Design. A graduate of the School of Architecture, CEPT University, Ahmedabad (2003), she has worked closely with Pritzker Laureate Balkrishna Doshi for over two decades as a partner architect.

Together with her husband, she founded Studio Sangath in 2015. The practice has undertaken several independent residential and institutional projects across India, while continuing to collaborate on the preservation, extension, and documentation of Doshi’s earlier works. The studio’s design philosophy centers on creating spaces that encourage the permeability of environment and human behavior, resulting in architecture that is deeply contextual and humane.

Khushnu has also been instrumental in curating, designing, and authoring several major publications on Balkrishna Doshi’s work. In 2014, Khushnu was invited by the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi, under the Ministry of Culture, to curate and design the retrospective exhibition of Balkrishna Doshi. This landmark exhibition has since travelled globally, from Shanghai to Weil am Rhein to Chicago and more.  Beyond these retrospectives, she has curated exhibitions for contemporary Indian artists in New Delhi, Baroda, Ahmedabad, and at Art Basel.

As Director of the Vastu Shilpa Foundation, she was involved in the International Habitat Design Studio (2003–2015), conducted in collaboration with European universities. She also initiated the Balkrishna Doshi Guru Ratna Award, honoring distinguished teachers in design education.

Khushnu has lectured internationally, including at the Architekturmuseum Munich, C-Mine Genk, Wrightwood 659 Chicago, and Boston Architectural College. Most recently, she and her husband collaborated with Doshi on the Doshi Retreat at the Vitra Campus—a contemplative space inaugurated in October 2025.

Instagram: @studio.sangath

Bill Bensley

Creative Director, BENSLEY

Bill Bensley is an American-born, Bangkok-based architect, landscape designer and interior designer whose flamboyant, highly imaginative approach has redefined the world of luxury hospitality. Since founding Bensley Design Studios in 1989, he has been the creative force behind more than 200 hotels, resorts and private residences across 30 countries, earning a reputation for crafting experiences that are as theatrical as they are thoughtful.

Bensley’s designs are instantly recognizable: layered with narrative, steeped in local culture, and often infused with a touch of irreverent humor. His projects range from the refined grandeur of The Siam in Bangkok, to the jungle fantasy of Shinta Mani Wild in Cambodia — an eco-conservation project that combines luxury with a mission to protect endangered forests. He is also the designer behind Capella Ubud in Bali, celebrated for its tented jungle retreat that balances bold aesthetics with sensitivity to the landscape.

Deeply committed to sustainability, Bensley often uses his work to champion environmental causes. He has spearheaded conservation initiatives, campaigned against animal exploitation in tourism, and developed design models that support both local communities and fragile ecosystems. His design philosophy is rooted in the belief that hospitality can be a force for good—providing joy and wonder while safeguarding nature.

Outside of his professional life, Bensley is known for his exuberant personality, love of painting, and a restless curiosity that fuels his boundless creativity. Equal parts designer, storyteller and conservationist, he continues to challenge conventions of luxury and inspire the hospitality industry to think more boldly and responsibly about the future.

Instagram: @billbensley

Peter Braithwaite

Principal, Peter Braithwaite Studio

Peter Braithwaite is the owner and operator of Peter Braithwaite Studio, an architecture and construction firm that operates in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Trained as a carpenter and cabinetmaker prior to attending architecture school, Peter believes that a dedication to craft and the act of making facilitates the production of buildings that are both environmentally and culturally sustainable. Following the completion of Master of Architecture at Dalhousie School of Architecture, Peter received the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Student Medal for achieving the highest level of academic excellence in his graduating class.

Since its establishment in 2014, Peter Braithwaite Studio has been published widely and received many honors including the Emerging Talent distinction by Canadian Architect, Early Design Achievement presented by the Canadian Council for the Arts, inclusion in the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory in 2019, and the Royal Architectural Institute of Architecture (RAIC) Emerging Architectural Practice Award in 2024.

Peter’s interest in ecological systems and how they relate to the built environment has remained prominent in the firm’s work and ethos. Peter was awarded a Killiam Doctoral Scholarship to complete PhD studies within Interdisciplinary Studies department at Dalhousie University that explores collaborative design approaches between architects and natural scientists. Peter is also completing a Doctor of Design at University of Calgary School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape that explores refined construction logistics that diminish habitat fragmentation and encourages greater ecological connectivity within built environments.

Instagram: @pb__studio | @atticdwellings | Linkedin: Peter Braithwaite | Peter Braithwaite Studio

Avinash Rajagopal

Editor in Chief of Metropolis

Avinash Rajagopal is the editor-in-chief of Metropolis magazine. He is an advocate for sustainable architecture and design, leading Metropolis’s initiatives and programs for decarbonization and equity in architecture and interior design, including the Climate Toolkit for Interior Design, the Interior Design Pledge for Positive Impact, and the Planet Positive Awards.

Rajagopal is the author of Hacking Design (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2013), has contributed to numerous volumes on architecture and design, and has lectured at the National Institute of Design in India; the University of Texas at Austin; the School of Visual Arts in New York; the New York School of Interior Design; and Parsons School of Design. He was one of the jurors for the AIA COTE Top Ten Awards 2023.

Instagram: @avirajagopal | LinkedIn: Avinash Rajagopal

Julia Watson

Landscape Designer, Author and Educator, Lo—TEK Office for Intercultural Urbanism and Lo—TEK Institute

Julia Watson is a designer, consultant, award-winning educator, and bestselling author pioneering the future of climate-resilient design through Indigenous knowledge systems. Australian-born and of Greco-Egyptian heritage, she was raised amid First Nations knowledge systems that deeply shaped her worldview. After studying architecture and landscape design in Australia, Julia earned a post-professional degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University, where she received the prestigious Charles Eliot Fellowship and multiple national design awards.

She is the author of Lo—TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism (Taschen, 2019), a seminal work that documents and celebrates earth-based, regenerative technologies developed by Indigenous peoples worldwide. Her forthcoming book, Lo—TEK Water: A Fieldguide for TEKnologists (2025), continues this mission by spotlighting Indigenous water stewardship practices that inspire resilient futures.

Julia cofounded the Lo—TEK Institute, which champions generational wisdom through nature-based education and advocacy, and co-created the Living Earth curriculum and digital database to embed traditional ecological knowledge in STEM learning. She also co-leads the Lo—TEK Office for Intercultural Urbanism, a transdisciplinary design studio that advances TEKnological Urbanism — an approach to city-making rooted in Traditional Ecological Knowledge, reciprocity, and intercultural co-design.

Over the past two decades, Julia has taught architecture, landscape, and urban design at leading institutions including Harvard, Columbia, RISD, and Rensselaer. She has worked closely with Indigenous communities around the world, from Peru to Iraq, to respectfully document and amplify their ecological technologies through storytelling, research, and design.

Instagram: @juliawatsonstudio | @lotekoffice | @lotekinstitute

Emanuele Naboni

Distinguished Professor, University of Sevilla | Royal Danish Academy | Norman Foster Institute

Emanuele Naboni is a Professor, Researcher, and Urban/Architectural Technologist. He is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Seville, focusing on architecture for climate change, and since 2010 has taught Building Technology at the Royal Danish Academy. He is also a faculty member at the Norman Foster Institute (with MIT Media Lab) and was an Adjunct Professor at UNSW Sydney with Mat Santamouris.

He has held visiting positions at UC Berkeley, ETH Zurich – Future Cities Lab Singapore, EPFL Lausanne, NTNU Norway, Southeast University Nanjing, and the Architectural Association London.

Previously, he worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) San Francisco as Design Leader of the Performance Design Studio. He has collaborated with NASA, BIG, CITA, Ladybug Tools, Stanford University, Renzo Piano, Kengo Kuma, William McDonough, Mario Cucinella, Google, Velux, and Autodesk. He has authored books with Routledge and Elsevier, and serves as editor of Energy and Buildings.

LinkedIn: Emanuele Naboni

Kimberly Tryba

Managing Principal, LILA Studio

Kimberly Tryba is Co-Founder and Managing Principal of LILA Studio, a NYC-based landscape architecture and urban design practice specializing in urban horticulture and culturally responsive design. Over the course of her career, she has collaborated with design firms, developers, and civic organizations to position landscape architecture as an engine for community connection, cultural relevance, and economic resilience

Instagram: @lilalandscape

Song Yehao

Founder & Principal, SUP Atelier

Prof. Dr. Song Yehao is a tenured professor and the Director of the Institute of Architecture and Technology at the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University, and he is the principal and co-founder of SUP Atelier, Deputy Chief Architect of THAD. He also serves as secretary-general of the Green Building’s theoretical and practical group, Chinese Green Building Committee. He has been selected as Chair of AHA National Alliances Council.

For the past 30 years, Prof. Song has focused on sustainable theory and design. He believes in a holistic, sustainable design approach that fully utilizes natural and social conditions, including nature and resources, cultural diversity, and social responsibility. To achieve this, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of regional and local contexts, as this enables the initiation of innovative designs that incorporate the latest technical measures or traditional climate adaptation design strategies. Additionally, contemporary translations of traditional design strategies, rooted in specific climate regions, can inspire innovative and sustainable design.

With over 20 completed projects, his practice is renowned for its holistic, sustainable approach, integrating building complexity with appropriate vernacular building materials and techniques in China.

Architizer's diverse jury of global experts is currently reviewing submissions to the 14th A+Awards! Sign up to receive updates on Public Voting and spring winner announcements.

The post Beyond Sustainability: Meet the A+Awards Jury Designing for Cultural and Climatic Change appeared first on Journal.

Selected from a shortlist of entrants by Architizer’s Editors, these awards will spotlight truly extraordinary architecture — projects that go beyond aesthetic excellence to address urgent challenges, elevate the built environment and embody the creative potential of the profession today. With the A+Awards now open for entries, we invite architecture and design firms around the world to submit their boldest, proudest works for consideration.

Getting your work in the running is simple: Enter the A+Awards by February 27, 2026, and make sure to opt in to the Project of the Year Shortlist during the submission process:

Start Submission →

Global Recognition for the Most Impactful Projects

While every A+Awards entry is eligible for recognition within its typology, only a select few will be chosen as Projects of the Year — standouts that exemplify architectural innovation, technical mastery and a story that resonates beyond the profession. These projects may span every building type, size, and region, but share a common thread: they reflect the highest level of ambition, detail and care.

Firms opting into this opportunity during the submission process will be considered for this top-tier recognition, with final selections made by Architizer’s Publisher and Editor in Chief, Paul Keskeys, Managing Editor Hannah Feniak, and others in our editorial team of architecture and design writers.

What Sets Project of the Year Apart?

In addition to the full slate of A+Awards benefits — publication in The World’s Best Architecture, global exposure via v2com’s press network, inclusion in the A+List, and a custom-designed A+Awards trophy — Project of the Year winners receive:

• Custom editorial coverage on Architizer Journal

• Priority consideration for speaking opportunities and events

• Global recognition as one of the most influential works of the year

These exclusive rewards are designed to amplify the impact of your project far beyond the awards stage, giving your firm the spotlight it deserves among peers, clients, and the public.

Enter My Project →

Celebrating the Work That Matters Most

From the smallest spatial intervention to the largest cultural landmark, the past year has seen architects and designers shape our world in remarkable ways. The Project of the Year honor is a chance to celebrate those efforts — and to share them with a global audience.

There is a small additional fee to be considered — but the rewards are unparalleled. This is your moment to elevate the work you’re most proud of — and help define the future of architecture! Submit your project by Febuary 28, 2026 to be considered:

Enter the A+Awards →

Top image: Hengqin Culture and Art Complex by Yunchao Xu Atelier Apeiron, Xiangzhou, Zhuhai, China, 13th A+Awards Jury Winner, Gallery and Exhibition Spaces

The post Call for Entries: Win “Project of the Year” in the 14th Architizer A+Awards! appeared first on Journal.

Architizer's diverse jury of global experts is currently reviewing submissions to the 14th A+Awards! Sign up to receive updates on Public Voting and spring winner announcements.

2025 marked a pivotal year in architecture, with new bars set for material intelligence and ecological responsibility, and marked by a renewed fascination with the craft of making. Across the 13th A+Awards, the Vision Awards, and the A+Product Awards, this year revealed how the built environment is being reshaped by ideas that prioritize context over spectacle.

As the world navigates rapid technological change, this year’s winners and finalists showed that architectural excellence is increasingly measured by clarity of intent and depth of execution. Looking back on 2025, these moments form a portrait of a profession continually refining its tools, expanding its influence, and embracing new modes of authorship in a world that demands resilience through imagination.

As the 14th A+Awards continues to invite entries with a Extended Entry Deadline of February 27th, 2026, let’s take a look back at the many milestones that have celebrated our winners and their groundbreaking projects throughout the last year:

January 2025: A+Award Juror Philippe Block Speaks on Sustainability, Concrete Vaulting and the Future of Structural Efficiency

HiLo Unit at NEST by ETH Zurich, Block Research Group, Dübendorf, Switzerland | Popular Choice Winner, Architecture +Concrete, 12th Architizer A+Awards

Professor and structural expert Philippe Block opened the year by demonstrating how geometry-driven vaulting radically reduces material use, reframing concrete as a precision tool rather than a carbon liability. His fascinating talk established a throughline for 2025: structural clarity is becoming one of architecture’s most powerful sustainability strategies. Read more > 

March 2025 | The Vision Awards Return, Expanding the Landscape of Architectural Representation

Fable or Failure by Alexander Jeong and Brandon Hing, 2023 Vision Awards Special Mention, Hand Drawing

The revived Vision Awards invited architects and students to innovate across drawings, films, models, and more, offering publication paths through Architizer’s newly announced book, How To Visualize Architecture, and the opportunity to have your work appear in Metropolis magazine. As reinforced by the panorama of winners, whose work was as visually arresting as it was thought-provoking, the program reasserted that visualization is not supplementary but foundational to how the profession communicates ideas. Read more >

April 2025 | Jury Voting Concludes; Public Voting Opens for the 13th A+Awards

Finalists in Architecture +Localism (from left): Woven Passage to Cloudy Peaks by line+ studio; Shannan Beehive Observation Cabin by OMNO Lab; Maona Village Center by SUP Atelier of THAD; FW JI· The Rural Memory Museum by IARA; Duling Educational and Cultural Centre by Project Mingde

After weeks of carefully calibrated deliberation, Architizer shared the highly anticipated finalists of the 13th Annual A+Awards, as chosen by the esteemed jury of over 250 design luminaries from around the globe. Read as a whole, the finalists revealed emerging microfeatures across global practice. One prominent and recurring theme was how adaptive reuse has evolved from a sustainability gesture into a core design methodology capable of reshaping entire typologies. The launch of public voting transformed this shift into a global conversation about how resource stewardship can drive architectural invention. Read more > 

April 2025 | A+Product Awards Finalists Announced; Public Voting Opened

Finalists in Pendant Lighting (from left): Legato Lighting Design by Yellow Goat Design; Kurtain by Luxxbox; The Dead City Pendant by Mutuus Studio; Lia by Focal Point; Clear Coil Collection by LightArt. 

The A+Product Awards finalists were unveiled this year, opening a global public vote that invited architects and designers to champion the materials and systems shaping next-generation building performance. The moment highlighted how specification culture has become increasingly community-driven, with practitioners elevating products that advance technical rigor and environmental responsibility. Read more > 

May 2025 | Vision Awards Jury Announced: A Global Assembly of Architectural Thinkers

Watercolor sketch for Meander Housing by Steven Holl Architects, Helsinki, Finland | Popular Choice Winner, Sustainable Multi-Unit Residential Building, 13th Architizer A+Awards

By late spring, Architizer dripped out features on revered practitioners — including Steven Holl, Daniel Libeskind, Lyndon Neri, and rising figure Amir Hossein Noori — who had joined the Vision Awards jury, forming a cross-generational coalition of architects, educators, and visionaries. Their appointment affirmed the award’s focus on representation as a site of architectural inquiry. Read more > 

June 2025 | The 13th Annual A+Awards Winners and A+Products Winners Are Revealed

Cultural Arena | New Bund 31 Performing Arts Center by Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, Shanghai, China | Popular Choice Winner, Hall/Theater, 13th Architizer A+Awards

Early summer marked the unveiling of the 13th Annual A+Awards Winners, celebrated through an expansive digital showcase that amplified the year’s guiding theme of Localism/Globalism. The cohort demonstrated how architects are reconciling cultural specificity with global challenges, advancing new models of practice that travel across contexts while remaining rooted in place. The announcement generated extraordinary international visibility for winning firms, sparking industry-wide dialogue and elevating their work across the global architectural stage. Read more >

Gather and Tiers by Foster + Partners, made in partnership with ESCOFET, a Barcelona-based company that works to promote the use of public space | Jury Winner, Outdoor Furniture, 2025 A+Product Awards

This year’s A+Product Awards Winners highlighted a rapidly shifting specification landscape, with manufacturers advancing circularity and material transparency in ways that directly shape architectural ambition. Their digital showcase and global announcement amplified visibility for both emerging and established brands, driving meaningful engagement from architects seeking products that align with evolving environmental and technical demands. The recognition placed each winner at the center of the design conversation for 2025, elevating their influence across international markets and future project pipelines. Read more >

July 2025 | 220 A+Award-Winning Architecture and Design Firms Showcased in the 7th A+List and A+Products List

Nakaniwa by Daniel Joseph Chenin, Ltd., Las Vegas, Nevada | Jury Winner, Unbuilt Private House (L>3000 sq ft), 13th Architizer A+Awards 

This year’s A+List revealed a geographic shift, with rising studios from secondary cities and younger practices gaining global visibility through agile, distributed ways of working. The cohort demonstrated how adaptability and cross-border collaboration are reshaping what it means to be a contemporary design firm. Read more >

Lanai by CSI Creative | Popular Choice Winner, Acoustics, 2025 A+Product Awards 

Products selected for the A+Products List reflected a growing emphasis on lifecycle clarity with performance systems that heighten control over environmental conditions. The list showed how specification culture is evolving toward components that actively influence a project’s long-term resilience and operational intelligence. Read more >

August 2025 | 14th A+Awards Season Theme Easter Egg in Key Editorial Publication

Shannan Beehive Observation Cabin by OMNO Lab, Qonggyai County, Shannan, China | Jury Winner, 13th Annual A+Awards, Architecture +Localism

A midyear Architizer feature offered an unexpected glimpse into the 14th A+Awards season by quietly introducing the upcoming theme: a new era of architectural craft. The article’s exploration of contemporary work signaled an industry rediscovering the expressive potential of hands-on thinking and material intention, even in a technologically accelerated moment. Readers quickly recognized the hints, sparking early conversation about how this focus might shape next year’s submissions and global architectural discourse. Read more >

September 2025 | Architectural Leaders Inspire Thousands with Future Fest Panel 

The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture by MASS Design Group, Rwanda | Jury Winner, Sustainable Landscape/Planning Project & Architecture +Landscape, 13th Architizer A+Awards

This year’s Future Fest explored the 14th Architizer A+Awards theme — architecture’s renewed commitment to craft — with Fernanda Canales, MASS Design Group’s Chris Hardy, and Steven Holl Architects’ Noah Yaffe presenting projects that recenter material intelligence and detailing, foreground the power of human hands and minds in an era of accelerating automation and AI. Together, they demonstrated how contemporary practice is reimagining authorship through place-specific construction and climate-driven design, reinforcing the enduring value of making. Read more >

September 2025  | Vision Awards Winners Announced

In Context by Brad Feinknopf | Jury Winner, Best Photo – Architecture & People, 2025 Vision Awards 

This year’s Vision Awards attracted hundreds of entries from across the globe, with submissions ranging from speculative urban designs to tactile models and cinematic films. The winners demonstrated how visual media can advance architectural thinking, not only representing ideas but interrogating them. Their recognition underscored the Vision Awards’ growing role as a platform for creators who expand the conceptual and cultural horizons of architecture through inventive modes of visualization. Read more >

October 2025 | The 13th Annual A+Awards Regional Event Draws North American Designers To NYC

A+Awards winners and their guests intermingle on the terraces of SOM’s iconic Lever House; photo by Zack DeZon

Architects gathered for an evening celebrating boundary-pushing projects and the global community behind them, energizing conversations about practice in an era of rapid change, reinforcing Architizer’s A+Awards as an anchor for international dialogue. Three Project of the Year winners from the region were announced, their work illuminating a new definition of craft — one that bridges traditional knowledge and contemporary experimentation. Read more >

November 2025 | Drawn to the Future: 6 Best of the Year Winners Named for 2025 Vision Awards

Theseus by Joe Russell & Emma Sheffer | Architectural Model of the Year | Additional Vision Award: Jury Winner in Vision for Reuse and Renovation

Among the many exceptional honorees, just six entries were selected as Best of the Year, representing the pinnacle of architectural visualization across six creative mediums: Conceptual, Drawing, Model, Photography, Rendering, and Videography. These winners exemplify the most innovative, evocative and technically masterful works submitted to this year’s program, each one offering a fresh lens through which to view architecture and its role in society. Read more >

November 2025 | A+Awards Regional Event Debuts in Paris 

Fortuny-Alventosa Morell Arquitectes scooped a Project of the Year accolade | Photo by Philippe Servent

The Paris gathering highlighted the depth of European design culture, bringing together firms committed to material exploration and civic-minded innovation. The event strengthened regional connections while extending the A+Awards’ global reach. Three more Project of the Year winners were announced, with remarkable projects demonstrating the power of architects’ material choices. Read more >

December 2025 | New Edition of “The World’s Best Architecture” Book Hits Bookshelves Worldwide

13th Architizer A+Awards book cover featuring Centre for Inclusive Growth & Competitiveness for Tapmi by The Purple Ink Studio, Manipal, India | Photo by Saurabh Suryan | Jury Winner, Community Centers, 13th Architizer a+Awards

This year’s collection is guided by a timely theme: celebrating local innovation with global recognition. While the A+Awards represent a worldwide platform, the projects within reveal a distinct movement away from anonymous globalism and towards architecture that is firmly rooted in its regional cultures and climates. Several copies away from selling out at the time of writing, the book continues its role as the definitive chronicle of global architectural excellence. Read more >

December 2025 | A+Firm-Winners Take the Spotlight in Feature Article

Featured image: Yagan Square by ASPECT Studios, Australia

Spanning continents, scales and specialties, the winners of the A+Awards Best Firm categories brought about significant impact, not only in the field of architecture but in the wider communities and environments in which they operate. This year’s top firms reflected notable momentum from Canadian studios and a surge of recognition for young practices reshaping traditional typologies. Their presence illustrated how smaller, agile teams are increasingly influencing the architectural landscape. Read more >

If 2025 revealed anything, it is that architecture’s future will be shaped as much by its methods as by its forms. Across hundreds of celebrated projects, products and visual works, architects embraced adaptive thinking, material experimentation and ecological agency, offering a clear signal of where the next decade is heading.

As we look ahead to the 14th A+Awards cycle, the momentum is unmistakable: a worldwide community of designers challenging conventions, elevating local contexts and reimagining the tools and techniques that define practice. Don’t forget — this year’s season is underway and awaiting your next project! Start your entry now and get in the hunt for global recognition in 2026:

Start Submission

We look forward to another year of celebrating the best of the best in global architecture and design! We can’t wait to see how you’ll contribute to the story in 2026.

Featured Image: Casa da Levada by Tsou Arquitectos | Photo by Ivo Tavares | Jury and Popular Choice Winner, Sustainable Private House, 13th Architizer A+Awards

The post A+Awards Wrapped: How We Celebrated the World’s Best Architecture and Products in 2025 appeared first on Journal.

Architizer's diverse jury of global experts is currently reviewing submissions to the 14th A+Awards! Sign up to receive updates on Public Voting and spring winner announcements.

Great architecture doesn’t end at the threshold — and neither does great design. For the 14th A+Awards, Architizer welcomes a jury of creative leaders who work across scales, from spatial strategies to the grain of a tabletop. These designers bring architecture closer to making, forging new connections with the built environment and materials with furniture and fabrication itself.

This year’s jurors are redefining how things are made — and how they’re experienced. Bryan Young and Jerome Byron translate conceptual rigor into sculptural, detail-rich forms. Nicole Hollis and Smita Thomas channel mood and memory into atmospheres that prioritize material integrity. Robin Reigi connects designers to the products and surfaces that shape their work, while Mark Gardner advances material culture as both a practice and a pedagogy.

Together, they represent a generation of designers who are eliding distinctions between architecture and product — and who champion work that’s as tactile as it is thoughtful. Their approach embodies the theme of Architizer’s A+Awards this season, which is championing a new era of architectural craft, wherein designers are taking back their role as makers in the face of increased automation— where material intelligence, detailing and human-centered ingenuity matter more than ever.

The Extended Entry Deadline arrives at Midnight PT on February 27, 2026. To secure your place in the program and take advantage of deeply discounted pricing, hit the button below to get started:

Start Submission →

Bryan Young

Founding Principal, Young Projects | Cofounder, Verso

Originally from Los Angeles, California, Bryan Young graduated with distinction from Harvard’s GSD in 2003 and was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Medal and James Templeton Kelley Thesis Prize for his analysis of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. He received his B.A. in Architecture with Highest Honors from UC Berkeley in 1997.

In 2010, Young founded the architecture and design studio Young Projects. Completing several projects ranging from buildings and interiors to furniture and prototypes, the studio was named Architectural Digest’s AD100 2025, Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard 2020, the Architectural League Emerging Voices 2020 and League Prize 2013, and AIANY’s New Practices New York 2014. The studio’s work has been featured in in numerous design publications, and their first monograph, Figure, Cast, Frame, was published in 2022 by Monacelli. Young has given numerous lectures internationally and taught studios at MIT, Cornell, The Cooper Union, Parsons, and Syracuse.

In 2022, Young cofounded the furniture and design gallery VERSO with Amauri Aguari. The gallery focuses on the narratives that bridge designers’ concepts, artisan techniques and final objects. Collections include bespoke, limited edition and open series furniture and art pieces from a curated group of international designers.

Nicole Hollis

Founder, Nicole Hollis

Founded by Nicole Hollis in 2002, NICOLEHOLLIS is a San Francisco-based interior design studio working across the United States and Europe. The studio designs environments that reflect how people live, feel, and gather. Each project is grounded in research into site, culture, and architectural precedent, and delivered with a deep respect for material integrity and place. A collective of interior designers, interior architects and furniture designers, the team draws from fine art, fashion and nature, and works collaboratively with architects, builders, artists and artisans.

Spanning residential, hospitality, and product design, the firm is guided by quiet rigor and a belief in design that elevates the human spirit. NICOLEHOLLIS has been consistently ranked in Architectural Digest’s AD100, Elle Décor’s A-List, 1stDibs 50, and Interior Design’s Top 100 Giants. Recent honors include the ASID and Hospitality Design Designer of the Year awards. Its work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The World of Interiors, Wallpaper*, and more.  In 2025, Nicole Hollis launched The NICOLEHOLLIS Collection, a line of limited-edition artist- and artisan-made pieces for the home that embody the studio’s design philosophy.

Instagram: @nicolehollis | @nicoleholliscollection

Jerome Byron

Co-Founder, Office of BC

Jerome Byron is a New York City–born, Berlin-based architect and furniture designer. He is a founding partner of Office of BC, a Los Angeles–based interior design studio recognized by Architectural Digest’s AD100 and Elle Decor’s A‑List. Alongside this, he maintains an independent practice under his own name, working across architecture and furniture.

His work merges traditional craft with experimental material processes — most notably in his furniture practice, which includes custom concrete casting, steel welding, and wood-burning techniques. His pieces have been exhibited by Carpenters Workshop Gallery in New York, and he has collaborated on a commercial line with CB2. He has been profiled by Architectural Digest, PIN–UP, and Cultured Magazine, with work featured in Wallpaper, Dwell, and Metropolis.

Instagram: @jeromebyron | @officeofbc

Robin Reigi

President-Elect, IIDA NY | Founder, Robin Reigi Inc. 

Robin Reigi is the founder and co-principal of Robin Reigi Inc., a New York–based materials company she leads with her partner, Jennifer Daly. For more than two decades, Robin has been a trusted voice in the architecture and design community, known for her expertise in materials that balance technical performance with aesthetic expression.

A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, Robin teaches a course she authored titled “Materials for a Sustainably Built Environment” at FIT and serves as President-Elect of IIDA NY. She has served as a juror for Pratt, Parsons, Columbia thesis reviews, and Architectural Record product competitions. Robin is a regular contributor to CBS News’ America ByDesign: Architecture and was a recent guest on The Anti-Architect podcast. Today,

Robin is recognized as a leading industry connector—bridging designers, architects, students, and manufacturers across disciplines and generations to strengthen collaboration, elevate material literacy, and advance a more sustainable and inclusive design culture.

Instagram: @robinreigimaterials

LinkedIn: Robin Reigi

Mark Gardner

Principal, Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects | Assoc. Professor of Architectural Practice & Society, School of Constructed Environments at Parsons the New School

Mark is a principal at Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects (J/GA) in New York City, J/GA is an award-winning design practice and studio that works across scales from product design to interiors to buildings. Mark works to best understand the role of design as a social practice. Mark is a 2026 President-Elect of the American Institute of Architects, New York Chapter (AIANY) and a member Exhibition Committee and a Past Co-Chair and current member of the AIANY Diversity & Inclusion Committee, which he helped to restart with Venesa Alicea in 2012. He is a Past President and Advocacy Chair for nycobaNOMA, the New York Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects.

Mark is the Associate Professor of Architectural Practice and Society at the School of the Constructed Environments, Parsons School of Design at the New School. He was Director of the M.Arch Program from 2017-2021. He served on the Van Alen Institute’s Board of Trustees, the Board of Advisors for the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, and the Board of Youth Design Center (YDC) in Brownsville Brooklyn. Mark currently serves on the Board of the Let Freedom Ring Foundation in Williamsburg, Va and the Advisory Board of the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites (CPCRS).

Instagram: @gigajellyroll

Smita Thomas

Chief Hatter, Multitude of Sins

Smita Thomas is the Chief Hatter at Multitude of Sins (MOS), an Indian design studio known for its fearless and experimental approach to design. A former corporate lawyer turned designer, she shapes spaces into immersive, narrative-driven experiences grounded in rigorous research and client voices. Her practice approaches risk-taking as a design discipline: intensely artistic, painstakingly detailed, and focused on material reimagination. It translates concepts through precise, exacting execution and moves beyond convention through deliberate energy and fearless experimentation that tests boundaries and reveals new potential.

Since establishing her practice in 2019, Smita has emerged as a distinct, unconventional voice in the design industry. Her projects have been internationally recognized by leading publications, including Wallpaper*, Frame, Dezeen, Yellow Trace, The Plan, and InDesign Live, amongst others. If the firm’s style or approach were to be distilled down, one could say their work is characterized by virtuoso use of custom-designed furniture, light fixtures, art and more, with each detail reflecting their deep commitment to originality and coherence, celebrating the richness of Indian culture while feeling refreshingly modern.

Instagram: @multitudeofsins

Architizer's diverse jury of global experts is currently reviewing submissions to the 14th A+Awards! Sign up to receive updates on Public Voting and spring winner announcements.

Start Submission →

The post Design in the Details: This Year’s A+Awards Jury Redefines Architecture One Surface at a Time appeared first on Journal.

As Paris enjoyed its final autumnal days, architects, designers and creative leaders gathered for an evening that intertwined dialogue and celebration. Hosted in collaboration with Release [AEC], the event followed a lively day of live demos of the latest software that is reshaping the AEC industry, in addition to a series of fascinating keynote presentations by industry leaders who are writing the new narrative about AI and creativity in the profession.

When dusk settled on the city, the Architizer’s A+Awards regional celebration began with a live panel titled Hidden Technologies: Rethinking Technology in Contemporary Architecture. Far from focusing on digital tools alone, the discussion explored how innovation in architecture often lies in restraint — in knowing which technologies will truly transform a project and which should be left aside.

The iLab set up by Bentley Systems invited users to interact with Cesium, Unreal Engine, Generative Al, Meta Quest 3 and the iTwin platform | Photo by Philippe Servent

The panel brought together three A+Award-winning practices whose work embodies distinct approaches to design and technical intelligence. Isabel Van Haute, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Coldefy, discussed the firm’s approach to four very different designs aimed at very distinct contexts, including the A+Award-winning Fondation Chine. Next, Philippe Croisier, Co-Founding Architect of Atelier du Pont, shared insights from their Pavilion Jardins at Parc de la Villette, a “low-tech” bioclimatic structure that proves traditional passive systems can outperform complex mechanical ones. Finally, François Chatillon, Founder and Chief Architect for Historical Monuments at Chatillon Architectes, revealed how advanced digital modeling informed the painstaking restoration of the Grand Palais, enabling precise interventions while preserving its historic integrity.

Francois Chatillon describes his firm’s restoration of Paris’ Grand Palais | Photo by Philippe Servent

Together, these perspectives set the tone for the evening — one defined by material intelligence, technological curiosity and a shared belief in architecture’s power to connect. All of this came together as a fitting context for a night of celebration, conversation and connection in conjunction with the 14th Architizer A+Awards season, which is now open for entries.

Submit to the 14th Architizer A+Awards

Setting the Stage

Photo by Philippe Servent

As the panel concluded, attendees transitioned into the Architizer A+Awards Paris Celebration, marking the second stop on the A+Awards’ new global tour, following the inaugural event in New York City. The evening honored three Project of the Year winners from across Europe and Africa — projects that represent not only technical ingenuity, but also a deep engagement with culture, craft and community.

Opening the celebration, Hannah Feniak, Architizer’s Managing Editor, welcomed guests and reflected on the evening’s theme: “Tonight, as we celebrate design innovation, it feels especially fitting to be gathered here, at an event dedicated to sparking conversation and sharing knowledge about the innovations that are reshaping our industry… To highlight the immense impact of good architecture, and to communicate the value of this vital profession to people around the world.”

She also previewed the program’s future direction, introducing the next A+Awards theme: Architecture’s New Era of Craft. “In the face of rapidly advancing technology and the evolving expectations of clients, we’re seeing architects reclaim their role as makers through material intelligence and the art of detailing.”

Craft and Community in Mallorca

Marc Alventosa, Joan J. Fortuny and Xavier Morell of Fortuny-Alventosa Morell Arquitectes | Photo by Claire Jaillard

The first Project of the Year Award was presented by Marc Solsona, Head of Strategy at Material Bank Europe, who introduced 6 HPP Ses Veles Puigpunyent by Fortuny-Alventosa Morell Arquitectes. The six-unit public housing complex on the island of Mallorca revives traditional Mediterranean construction methods — lime, stone, ceramics and timber — to achieve near-zero energy use and an architecture deeply rooted in place.

Accepting the award, Joan Fortuny, Xavier Morrell, and Marc Alventosa spoke of the project’s quiet radicalism: “We are truly happy that an international award like the A+Awards shines a light on a project that may not seek visibility through a spectacular image, but through the depth of its process.”

“The design process was guided entirely by the criteria of the site, reusing materials from its own excavation and from the island itself,” they continued. “No other materials were involved in the process, which means truly recovering the building culture of the place, while achieving a very low CO₂ footprint. This circular approach reinforces our belief that sustainability is not only ecological, but also social and cultural.”

They closed with a reflection that resonated throughout the evening: “We are especially proud that this is a social housing project. Housing must return to being a basic right, not a financial instrument. Architecture can be a tool for change.”

The Dignity of Infrastructure in Cape Town

Jan-Dirk van der Walt and Gustav Roberts of SALT Architects | Photo by Philippe Servent

Next, Philippe Brocart, Founder of Release [AEC], took the stage to present the Project of the Year Award to SALT Architects for the Cape Flats Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) Plant in Cape Town, South Africa — a critical infrastructure project that purifies water and recharges the city’s aquifer. The design, expressed through brick and concrete, gives architectural dignity to the unseen systems that sustain urban life.

In their acceptance remarks, Gustav Roberts and Jan-Dirk van der Walt reflected on the social and moral dimensions of their work: “The Aquifer Recharge Plant reflects a deep shared value of care — about how we choose to build, and what that says about us as a society. Every act of construction contributes to our shared culture. The way we design, the attention we give, and the dignity we bring to even the most functional buildings, reflects how we see our future and who we want to be.”

They added: “Celebrating these infrastructure systems allows citizens to notice where their water comes from and how their city works. It turns something technical into something people can relate to and take pride in.”

Craftsmanship Reimagined in Montmartre

Julien Labrousse of Policronic | Photo by Philippe Servent

The final Project of the Year Award of the evening went to Hotel Elysée Montmartre by Policronica, located just a short metro ride away from the event venue. Introduced by Lucia Stroetzel, head of Architect Relations at Architizer, the project was celebrated for its radical material circularity — transforming eucalyptus, an invasive species and fire risk, into refined joinery through a self-developed solar vacuum drying process. The design not only revitalizes a long-abandoned building, but it also showcases the beauty of technical ingenuity and the value of challenging material processes — even if they may seem entrenched. The 16-room hotel unfolds as an immersive study in woodcraft — every surface, fixture, and furnishing conceived, fabricated, and installed by the studio’s own design and production teams.

Accepting the award, Julien Labrousse, Founder of Policronica, shared his gratitude and perspective: “It is a tremendous honor for the Policronica studio to receive an Architizer Award. This project embodies our total commitment to sustainability and craftsmanship. It proves that architecture can unite design and production, creating work that is locally made, technically rigorous and deeply human.”

A Celebration of Craft and Connection

alvarez | sotelo were named Jury Winner for the Best Young Interior Design Firm | Photo by Claire Jaillard

Tsou Arquitectos pick up their award for Casa da Levada in Penafiel, Portugal, which was the Jury and Popular Choice Winner for Sustainable Private House | Photo by Claire Jaillard

Closing the evening, Hannah Feniak returned to the stage to thank the partners — Release AEC, Material Bank Europe and Polygood — and to commend all of the 13th A+Awards season’s winners for their creativity and conviction: “By sharing your knowledge through your work, you inspire architects across the globe to strive for better buildings, better cities, and a better world.”

As guests clinked their glasses and mingled amongst one another, conversations continued late into the night — between young architects inspired by the talks, established practitioners discussing process and politics, and designers exchanging ideas for the next competition cycle.

DA bureau was named Jury Winner for the Best Interior Design Firm | Photo by Claire Jaillard

DEED Studio clinched Jury Winner in Architecture +Photography and Video for their series on the Process Department of Shamim Polymer Factory, Tehran, Iran | Photo by Claire Jaillard

The Paris celebration marked not just another milestone in the 13th Architizer A+Awards season, but also a clear statement of purpose: that architecture’s future lies in the integration of technology, craft and community Next, the journey continues to Shenzhen, where Architizer’s global celebration of architectural innovation will conclude the season amid one of the world’s fastest-growing hubs of experimentation — closing out a season that proves design excellence knows no borders. Stay tuned for stories on more winners’ celebrations in the coming weeks!

All of this is encapsulated in the theme of the 14th A+Awards season, which is now open for entries:

Submit to the 14th Architizer A+Awards

The post When Craft Meets Code: Architizer’s Global Tour Continues With A+Awards Event in Paris appeared first on Journal.