Image of A+ Award by Snarkitecture

Last night on the West Side of New York City we celebrated the first annual Architizer A+ Awards. Altogether 55 winners flew in from all over the world to be with us to celebrate architecture.

But this wasn’t your typical architecture award event. We skipped the typical conversations of architects speaking to architects and, instead, had a diverse crew of honorees and presenters get up on stage to fete the world’s finest buildings. We had developers giving awards to architects, we had architects giving awards to presidents… it was an architecture love-fest!

Last night we introduced six special achievement awards designed to remind a world that loves buildings that architecture belongs to everyone. Great architecture takes advocacy to be relevant, and it takes patrons with visions to create spectacular projects. That is why we are proud to announce the 2013 Architizer A+ Awards Relevance Award, Advocacy Award and Patron of the Year Award. We also announced the Do Good Award, Lifetime Achievement Award, and Building of the Year.

And our Special Award Winners are …

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A note from Marc Kushner, CoFounder of Architizer and a practicing architect.

Last night we threw a party for architecture. Architecture needed a good party.

At a venue on the West Side of New York City we had entrepreneurs, developers, fashion designers, the CEO of a major sports team and the President of a nation. All of them at an architecture event.

Bjarke Ingels at the Architizer A+ Awards Gala

We had our partners from the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and Coolhunting there, along with our sponsors, Emirates Airline, Audemars Piguet, Audi and Perrier Jouet. All there to celebrate architecture.

Of course we also had architects: 55 of the 87 Architizer A+ Award winners flew in from all corners of the world to be with us at the the first ever Architizer A+ Awards gala. This party was for them, to celebrate the inaugural year of the Architizer A+ Awards.

12 months ago we launched the Architizer A+ Awards to change the game, to break architecture out of its echo chamber and to change how architects are rewarded for their hard work. 1,500 entries from 100 countries, 200 jurors, and 50 categories later we succeeded.

Last night two people said things to me that made me realize we are on the right path:

First it was Thom Browne, the fashion designer, who said to me that he was so happy to attend an architecture event because all of his fashion is inspired by architecture. He never goes to architecture events because he had never been invited before!

Shame on us architects! We have fans out there that want to love us. Last night we broke architecture out of its shell and invited everyone to come and celebrate architecture with us.

Fashion designer Thom Browne at the Architizer A+ Awards Gala

The second person was President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia who said to the 400 guests that taking risks is the only way to build good architecture. He told the room proudly that he had been criticized for commissioning progressive architecture. He advised every architect that if you aren’t being criticized then you aren’t real.

President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili with Architizer Co-founder Marc Kushner

Last night we took a risk. We put architecture on a stage that it was unaccustomed to. We put it in a global spotlight.

Last night we broke out of the echo chamber where architects speak exclusively to architects, and we reminded the public how important our profession is.

Last night we held our heads up proudly and said to the world: We are architects! We design every space you live in, work in and play in. We are the people that design the backdrop to everyday life.

Last night we told the world that architecture is ready to be recognized for its contribution.

Congratulations to all of our winners. Congratulations to every architect in the world. This is just the beginning.

Stay tuned for more coverage and make sure to sign up to be a beta tester for the New Architizer, launching this summer

Photo credits: Matteo Prandoni/BFAnyc.com 

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The Architectural League has announced the winners of its 32nd annual Prize For Young Architects + Designers. This year’s theme, Range, prompted participants to show work that they feel pushes the limits of the profession, perhaps even in radical new directions. Judged based on submitted portfolios, competing designers have to be less than ten years out of school. Winners were selected by a jury that included Teresita Fernandez, Paul Lewis of LTL Architects, Thom Mayne of Morphosis, Charles Waldheim of the GSD, and Meejin Yoon of Howeler + Yoon.

And the winners of the 2013 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers are: Luis Callejas, Lcla Office, Cambridge and Medellín; Brandon Clifford and Wes McGee, Matter Design, Boston and Ann Arbor; Marc Fornes, MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY, Brooklyn; Rafael Luna and Dongwoo Yim, PRAUD, Boston and Seoul; Skylar J.E. Tibbits, SJET, Boston; and Bryan Young, Young Projects, Brooklyn. Check out their awesome projects after the jump. 

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This project won the 2013 Architizer A+ Jury Awards in Religious Buildings categories. See the full list of winners here.

The Capilla del Lago is a small lakeside chapel outside of Zamora, Mexico. Di Vece Arquitectos of Guadalajara designed the structure to embody simplicity and ephemerality, creating a worship space linked directly to nature. By day, the chapel is an unassuming landscape pavilion, but by night the structure is transformed into a glowing lantern floating on the lake. Read more.

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This project won the 2013 Architizer A+ Popular Choice Award in the Religious Buildings category. See the full list of winners here. 

Designing a contemporary building in a historic setting is never easy—let alone when the structure is a mausoleum for a renowned cemetery. HGA Architects and Engineers accepted the monumentous challenge, and created a breathtaking spiritual space set in a tranquil landscape. The elegant Garden Mausoleum is partially sunken to preserve the serene parkland of Minneapolis’ Lakewood Cemetery, providing a myriad of distinct spatial experiences above and below the manicured grounds. Read more.

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This project won the 2013 Architizer A+ Jury Award and Popular Choice Award in the Health Care + Aging category. See the full list of winners here.

A lackluster pool is like a bad cheesecake. If it fails to supply delight and escape, its existence just seems pointless. The Hotel Castell dels Hams, on the Spanish island of Majorca, had a pool problem. Though it was housed in a glass and aluminum shell, “the pool was dark and thermally worked quite badly with a lot of heat loss through this enclosure,” writes architect Cristian Santandreu, whose firm Estudio A2arquitectos revamped the swimming situation—and added an adjacent spa—in 2011. The architects’ splashy new design wowed our A+ judges and our readers, garnering both the jury prize and the popular vote in the Health Care + Aging category of the A+ Awards.

The pool’s new wrapper is punctured with square windows and skylights on three sides (plus the roof). With all that light bouncing off the water and the pool floor, guests get a hint of topsy-turviness, as though they are swimming on the ceiling. Meanwhile, the really committed sunbathers can try for a geometric suntan! Read more.

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This project won the 2013 Architizer A+ Jury and Popular Choice Awards in BOTH the Government & Municipal Buildings AND Parks categories. See the full list of winners here.

Rising above misty Norwegian fjords, the Trollstigen National Tourist Route provides unprecedented access to a sublime Scandinavian landscape. The bold forms and robust materiality employed by Oslo-based Reiulf Ramstad Architects evoke rugged modernism with a cinematic flair. This exquisite project astounded our esteemed jurors and avid fans alike, sweeping both the Jury and Popular Choice Awards in two different categories to become the most highly decorated Architizer A+ winner! A masterwork of composition and material, the project’s true beauty lies in its restraint and technical execution, perched atop the world. Read more.

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Tour Bois-le-Prêtre, by Frédéric Druot, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal.

We’re taking a quick break from our coverage of all the supremely talented A+ Award winners to admire the inspired designs that took the top prize in the London Design Museum’s 2013 Designs of the Year competition. From a wheelchair with collapsible wheels to a resuscitated tower block on the outskirts of Paris, there’s a strong public-interest design bent to the jury’s picks—and much to love. The 90-plus nominees are on display in an exhibition at the museum through July 7, and we hear an overall winner will be announced soon! Check out the seven category winners after the jump. 

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This project won the 2013 Architizer A+ Jury Award in the Higher Education & Research Facilities category. See the full list of winners here. 

Decked out with advanced Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) features, the futuristic hub of RMIT University Design proposes a new path forward for collaborative learning. Melbourne-based Sean Godsell Architects wowed our distinguished jury with the perfect blend of cutting-edge technology and innovative spatial organization, securing the Architizer A+ Jury Award for Higher Education & Research Facilities category. New thinking in the design of “knowledge communities,” like that employed in the RMIT Design Hub, is revolutionizing how universities evaluate architecture. Read more!

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This project won the 2013 Architizer A+ Popular Choice Award in the Higher Education & Research Facilities category. See the full list of winners here. 

The sleek Pharmaceutical Sciences building at the University of British Columbia provides a new state-of-the-art home to an internationally recognized research hub. Designed by Saucier + Perrotte with HCMA, the UBC Pharmaceutical Science Building captured the imagination—and votes—of the public, clinching an Architizer A+ Award in the hotly contested category of higher education and research facilities. Design leader Gilles Saucier says the team conceived of the project as a gateway to the campus that showcases sustainability “in a way that harmonizes with and preserves, rather than compromises, the specific design intentions.”  Read more!

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