Help Pick Out The World’s Best New Architecture And Design

Help Pick Out The World’s Best New Architecture And Design

The second annual Architizer A+ Awards are open and awaiting submissions from designers and architects around the world. With three main categories, representing Architecture, Spaces, and Products, the competition boasts a huge list of jurors — more than 200 architects, critics, writers, designers, curators, educators and more (including myself, in full disclosure) — and claims to reach an audience of nearly 80 million people through its various media partners (such as Gizmodo).

The specific categories include a bewildering array of options for submitting architectural projects, the only consistent criterion of which is that the projects must have been completed — that is, built — in the last three years.

The most interesting aspect of the competition is probably the “Plus” part of the awards, where various abstract themes are added on to a central category for emphasis. Architecture +Sound is one, for example, but there is also Architecture +Preservation, Architecture +Mobility, Architecture +Technology, +Fabrication, +Ageing, +Engineering, +Light.

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And that’s just architecture; the “Plus” system is repeated all over again with Products, introducing a few new tags in the process (+Health Care, +Bath, +Kitchen…). There are a few opportunities, as well, for submitting student work, albeit only fully constructed projects. Sadly, these don’t appear to have reduced fees associated with them (which is too bad, because, at $195 for early entry and $US245 for regular entry submissions, the competition is not cheap).

Some of last year’s winners, photos of which appear in this post, run the gamut from Julien De Smedt‘s Hollmenkollen Ski Jump in Norway; the widely distributed and architecturally diverse constellation of rest stops and road-side structures of the so-called National Tourist Routes (also in Norway); Holland’s Kaap Skil Maritime Museum by Mecanoo; and the Dolomitenblick house in Sesto, Italy, by Plasma Studio, among many others.

[clear] [clear] The early deadline is not that far away: submissions are due November 1, 2013. The awards themselves are set to be announced next Spring, with an awards gala held during NYCxDesign. Stay tuned to Gizmodo over the next few months for other updates and announcements as the awards draw near.

But, more importantly, what should win? A rammed-earth hotel in Utah? A coiling and inter-dimensional sports hall of fame? Luxury apartments in Buenos Aires? An art museum outside New York City? Temporary dormitories for a refugee medical clinic in Thailand? Four Freedoms Park? This wastewater treatment plant in the mountains outside Barcelona? L.A.’s Expo Line? What are the overlooked or worthwhile projects — from museum to oil rigs to the London Array — that belong in the long list of competitors?

The London Array; image via GigaOm.


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