Top 30 A’ Design Award Recipients: A Round-Up

For more than a decade, the A’ Design Award & Competition (designaward.com) has been a beacon for recognizing, celebrating, and fostering excellent design across various disciplines. This award stands as the most extensive annual juried design competition, extending its reach internationally across numerous categories, from industrial design to architecture.

Each year, the competition honors projects that epitomize innovation, technology, design, and creativity, propelling them further toward success. The competition does not merely celebrate achievements; it offers an extensive list of prizes. Targeted at architects, designers, and innovators, it aims to provide a global platform for those who seek international recognition for their groundbreaking projects.

As the 2023-2024 edition opens its call for regular submission entries, ArchEyes takes the opportunity to spotlight 30 of our all-time favorite design and architecture-winning projects. This selection includes projects from past editions, along with some standout winners from the 2022-2023 cycle. Announced in April, the competition celebrated the success of winners hailing from 108 countries, spread over 104 different design disciplines. The entries underwent meticulous evaluation by an influential international jury panel. This panel, comprised of established scholars, prominent press members, innovative design professionals, and seasoned entrepreneurs, demonstrated remarkable precision and attention to detail in assessing each submission.

Registration for the A’ Design Award & Competition 2023-2024 is now underway, with results eagerly anticipated to be announced to the public on April 2024.

Cuiwan Zhongcheng Demonstration Zone by Arch Age Design

• Designer: Xiao Qun, Yang Chao, Ran Chaofeng, Jia Dong, Liu Ran and Xu Xianwen
• Winner Category: 2023 – 2024, Platinum A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “The project is located at the junction of two plots, unfolding towards the city and showing future architecture, future traffic, future neighborhood, and many other life scenes in future community. It is like a stage, giving its great performance and shouldering beautiful imagination about future community as well. It will function as a demonstration area at the early stage and as a “community center” at the later stage.”

272 Hedges Avenue Pedestal Architecture by Rafael Contreras and Monica Earl

• Designer: Rafael Contreras and Monica Earl
• Winner Category: 2023 – 2024, Platinum A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “Biologically informed and digitally engineered, the contoured design acknowledges nature’s extraordinary sculptors: the wind and ocean. The facade is a stainless-steel monocoque structure that is original and complex in its conception, design and execution. The subtle curvatures resemble the crests and erosion of wind on sand, while the interior alludes to a rock cave naturally eroded by the ocean. The innovative and advanced architecture is imbued with warmth, soul and artistry.”

The Kaleidoscope Office and Residence by Inrestudio

• Designer: Inrestudio, Nguyen Quynh Han, and Vo Hanh Nhan
• Winner Category: 2022 – 2023, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “The characteristic roof of the building inherits the idea of Non-La, a Vietnamese traditional farmer’s hat made of palm leaf, that a large conical surface shuts out sunlight and rain while allowing for the wind underneath. In order to enhance natural ventilation, solid walls are arranged perpendicularly to the roof periphery. These form a series of V-shapes to cut out triangular private rooms while defining a large in-between space that is used for public functions.”

The Pitched Roof House by Takaharu Tezuka and Yui Tezuka

• Designers: Niitsugumi Co., Ltd., Structure: OHNO-JAPAN, Lighting: BONBOLI Lighting Architect & Associates, and Landscape: GA Yamazaki
• Winner Category: 2020 – 2021, Silver Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Category.
• Inspiration: Deep eaves, as one of the most important Japanese traditional architecture elements in local monsoon climate, are almost extinct in modern houses. It is essential to comprehend the meaning of these traditional elements in the modern setting. With the latest technology, the house seek to reinterpret the deep eave in the context of a humid climate, and retain and create more opportunities for these distinctive Japanese qualities to sprout forth in modern architecture.

Tetris House by studiomk27

• Designers: Marcio Kogan, Carolina Castroviejo, Diana Radomysler, and Maria Cristina Motta
• Winner Category: Golden A’ Design Award Winner for Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Category in 2014
• Inspiration: There is continuity not only of the circulation between the inside and out but also of the materials, dissolving spatial limits.

Huanghesong Theatre Cultural Venues by Xuelin Wu

• Designers: Xuelin Wu, Hai Lin and Gao Li
• Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Platinum A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “Architecture is the integration of ecology and culture, and its shape is like the vortex of the Yellow River. Continue its concept in interior design, excavate the ritual and music culture of Central Plains culture, and deduce ancient music in space through modern means.”

Rice Wine Cultural Center by Wei Zhang and Kesuo Wu – gad

• Designers: Wei Zhang and Kesuo Wu – gad
• Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “The design makes full use of the landscape advantages of the site; the three-story building volume is stacked and retreated back from south to north, forming a number of roof terraces overlooking the Dashu River, creating more possibilities for the later use of the restaurant. Drawing on the strong functional adaptability of traditional wooden frame architecture and Domino architecture system, the scheme decided to take 4.8mx4.8mx4.8m cubic square as the basic module of the building.”

Bamboo Pavilion Toilet Renovation by Manuel Lap Yan Lam – The Volks Design

• Designers: Manuel Lap Yan Lam and Design Team: Scarlett Li
• Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “Façade of the Bamboo Pavilion is a re-interpretation of bamboo scaffolding that the Macau industry has used over the years. Hundreds of white aluminum tubes are arranged in a staggered manner surrounding the structure forming a translucent shell that blends in with nature. The bathroom space is turned inside out. Light rays shine through the façade to the interior; daylight and ventilation are enhanced by preserving the skylights and by tailor-made slanted windows that integrated openings to enhance cross ventilation.”

Monopitched Roof Residence by Masato Sekiya

• Designers: Masato Sekiya and Shizuko Kuroda, Structural Designer: Shigeyuki Nakata
• Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “The main precept of traditional Japanese house design is creating continuity between the outside and interior spaces. Simultaneously, the emphasis is on harmony with nature, creating an all-season, energy-efficient house that blends with the environment. This house was designed for rural Nara Prefecture, Japan. This is a modern take on traditional design, materials, and methods, and the house is arranged around a central traditional Japanese garden, with a link and flow between each room.”

Double Skin House by Nobuhito Mori

• Designers: Nobuhito Mori
• Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “There is a traditional Japanese partition, the shoji, which is a way of ensuring light and privacy. The shoji consists of a thin wooden frame covered with translucent paper, which softens the incoming light and blurs the interior. Inspired by the shoji, the designer has created a modern light filter that is resistant to wind and rain and can also be used outside.”

Kujdane Holiday House by Yaser Rashid Shomali and Yasin Rashid Shomali

• Designer: Yaser Rashid Shomali and Yasin Rashid Shomali
• Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “The design team expresses influence from its natural context to curate the contemporary cabin dwelling, a reinterpretation of the traditional A-frame typology. the wooden material palette is expressed with cool-toned interior elements, paired with a facade of full-height glazing to fit the dwelling’s curving profile.”

Slab Hill Lifestyle Lab by Greentown China Holdings Limited

• Designer: line+, gad, Chief Architect/Project Leader: Zhu Peidong and Design Team: Sun Xiaoyu, Yang Xiaoyu, Sun Jin
• Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “In order to build a deep foundation of dialogue with nature in the everyday urban site, we envisage a new architectural prototype based on the fractal geometry of nature-the smallest structural unit in the construction process as the basic spatial unit, which, with a certain “self-similarity”, thus building up the architectural form-this evolution of the building from unit to whole is similar to the natural growth of a living creature in response to the laws of nature.”

Bayfront Pavilion Public Event Space by Thomas Schroepfer

• Designers: Thomas Schroepfer, Alex Cornelius, Aloysius Lian, Thomas Wortmann, Amanda Yeo Qian Yu, Joel Yap Kar Ying, Yehezkiel Wiliardy Manik, and Christyasto Priyonggo Pambudi
• Winner Category: 2020 – 2021, Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
• Inspiration: The inspiration for the Pavilion was the environmentally comfortable and visually beautiful experience of walking under the foliage of lush trees in the tropics. This idea was translated into a design with a clear mathematical logic that was determined by extensive environmental simulations and structural optimizations. The analyses and their application to a detailed computational model led to an optimum solution for the structural form and pattern of the Pavilion. Material usage was optimized, and the embodied carbon footprint was minimized, pointing the way forward for the building industry to adopt similar design tools and methods.

Imatra GIS Electricity Substation by Virkkunen and Co Architects

• Designers: Tuomas Kivinen, Anna Blomqvist and Maria Karjalainen
• Winner Category: 2020 – 2021, Silver Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Category.
• Inspiration: The beautiful landscape and the historical significance of the area were the primary sources of inspiration for us. The existing, impressive industrial architecture of the context was another major factor in the design. The guiding principle has been that the new structures should form a clearly defined new historical layer. They would also have to be timeless and combine harmoniously with the context. We sought to further elevate the beauty of the site.

Slope House Residence by Kyungsik Kim

• Designers: Kyungsik Kim
• Winner Category: 2020 – 2021, Silver Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category.
• Inspiration: The inspiration for the project came from the Kam-ak mountain near the site. Conceptually the gentle slope of the mountain extends to the house, creating the sloped roof which is a main feature of the design.

Peloponnese Rural Residential House by Ivana Lukovic  

• Designers: Ivana Lukovic architect, Collaborators: Alexandra Arampatzi architect, Kostas Geranios architect and Orestis Mpormpantonakis architect
• Winner Category: 2020 – 2021, Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
• Inspiration: Industrial feel of the traditional stone stables characteristic of the Peloponnese rural areas was inspiration for natural materials applied on the elevation and in interior. Reclaimed local stone that was supplemented with new, grey roof tiles, black aluminum facade windows frames, washed-wood handmade shutters, black metal railing, white-oil treated OSB and cement mortar in two shades are all implemented in contemporary manner, simultaneously echoing the past while contributing to the materiality richness.

One Main Office by dECOi Mark Goulthorpe, Raphael Crespin

• Designers: dECOi – Mark Goulthorpe (Principal), dECOi – Raphael Crespin (Designer), dECOi – Gabriel Blue Cira, dECOi – Matt Trimble, dECOi – Priyanka Shah, MIT – Kaustuv de Biswas, Oxford University – Prof Alex Scott, Gensler – Helen Heitman, Gensler – Pablo Garcia, Tricore
• Winner Category: 2015 – 2016, Platinum A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: The project displaces the combinatorial logic of ready-made components typical of the late-industrial process for a seamless and non-standard protocol of customized fabrication. A formal aesthetic emerges from these processes, imbuing the design with a curvilinear continuity at a detail and spatial level.

The Curtain Sales Office by Larry Wen and Yibo Wang – Aoe

• Designers: Larry Wen, Yibo Wang, Chao Xie, and Yusong Zhang
• Winner Category: 2017 – 2018, Platinum A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: Reshaping the cultural self-confidence with innovative design solutions. The Metal Mesh works as an energy-saving material to block the direct sunlight and aesthetically related to Chinese culture.

P Residential House by studiomk27

• Designers: Marcio Kogan, Lair Reis, Diana Radomysler, Carolina Castroviejo, Carlos Costa, Laura Guedes, Mariana Simas, Oswaldo Pessano and Suzana Glogowski
• Winner Category: Golden A’ Design Award Winner for Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Category in 2014
  
• Inspiration: Since China has developed from agricultural civilization to industrial civilization, history never goes back. The Chinese peaceful and indifferent life aesthetics and faith for the integration of nature and humans are challenged and neglected. We do not deny development, but China needs to regain attention to its own culture at this stage.

Ging Chair by Alan Hung

• Designers: Alan Hung
• Winner Category: 2017 – 2018, Platinum A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “When I was a child, I remember picking up wood sticks and made my own slingshot. The unique shape of the slingshot inspired the form of the chair. At the same time, it reminds me of the joy and memory when I first made my own craft. The chairs’ form inspired by the slingshot is aesthetically intriguing, and also structurally relating.” – Alan Hung

Twins Seating Units by Ece-Oguz Yalim

• Designers: Ece Yalim, Oguz Yalim, and Feride Toprak
• Winner Category: 2011 – 2012, Gold A’ Furniture, Decorative Items, and Homeware Design Category
• Inspiration: “The challenge was to create a friendly, simple design that can find its place in various contemporary office designs. Linear furniture, rectangular spaces of contemporary office interiors inspired us to create a pleasing contrast with a sculpturesque, dynamic form which comes from slight angles of the object.”

Termalija Family Wellness by Enota

• Designers: Dean Lah, Milan Tomac, Peter Sovinc, Nuša Završnik Šilec, Polona Ruparčič, Peter Karba, Carlos Cuenca Solana, Jurij Ličen, Tjaž Bauer, Sara Mežik, Eva Tomac, Jakob Kajzer, Maja Majerič and Goran Djokić
• Winner Category: 2019 – 2020, Gold A’ Building and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: Termalija Family Wellness is the latest in the series of projects which we have built at Terme Olimia in the last fifteen years and concludes the complete transformation of the spa complex. A lot of effort was invested in designing the buildings in such a way that they don’t fill the space but connect it even more with the surrounding nature. The volume of necessary space required siting of a larger structure that couldn’t merely be buried below the grade like in our previous projects on the site. No longer being able to reference only the surrounding natural landscape, the solution was found in scale and form of surrounding vernacular structures. The large roof above the water area was divided into sets of smaller segments to prevent its scale from overwhelming surroundings. Viewed from a distance, the shape, color, and scale of the new clustered structure of tetrahedral volumes is a continuation of the cluster of surrounding rural buildings, which visually extends into the heart of the complex.

Coupe Kitchen Stool Kitchen Stool by Nagano Interior

• Designers: Hisao Hara, President: Takahiro Nagano, Vice President: Yohei Nagano, Product Development Section Chief: Kazunari Tanaka, Product Development Sub Section Chief: Kenichi Imagawa and Sales Promotion Section Chief: Keisuke Maeda
• Winner Category: 2019 – 2020, Platinum A’ Furniture, Decorative Items, and Homeware Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “In the living space, dining chairs and relaxation sofas have been proposed as necessary furniture already. However, when we were analyzing actual behavior, it was found that there were many situations where a chair was required to hold the posture of movement in the middle of standing and sitting. We found the possibility of a high stool that can sit in a posture close to standing.”

Codependent Table by Fletcher Eshbaugh

• Designer: Fletcher Eshbaugh
• Winner Category: 2019 – 2020, Gold A’ Furniture, Decorative Items, and Homeware Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “This design was inspired by a fascination of how profound a role psychological conditions play in an individual’s lives. This often goes unnoticed by the affected and is the source of unresolved discomfort. With this, the larger vision for this table was the hope that the design can spur a larger conversation about mental health, psychology, and well being.”

Bandage Sofa by Olga Bogdanova and Elena Prokhorova

• Designers: Art direction – Olga Bogdanova and Product designer – Elena Prokhorova
• Winner Category: 2018 – 2019, Platinum A’ Furniture, Decorative Items, and Homeware Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: Creating this product, Bogdanova Bureau team wanted to embody a comfortable piece of furniture that meets all the requirements of the consumer. Soft lines and modern design – creating this sofa, the team wanted it to fit into almost any modern interior.

Bo Du Resort Hotel Design by Zhang Can – CSD Design Office

• Designers: Zhang Can and Lighting Design: Wan Xia
• Winner Category: 2018 – 2019, Platinum A’ Interior Space and Exhibition Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: Bodu in Chinese means providing a place for rest. And that is precisely what the Bodu hotel brand aims to offer, a place to meditate close to nature. The historic Tengchong is inseparable from the ancient silk road. Many of Tengchong’s charms come from its rich culture, which inspired many poets and calligraphers.

EN Skincare Salon and Store by Yusuke Kinoshita

• Designer: Yusuke Kinoshita
• Winner Category: 2019 – 2020, Platinum A’ Interior Space and Exhibition Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: Adding a series of circular partitions across four rooms and two levels to define the various functions of the space gently. This leans into the Japanese hospitality principle of discovery; patrons must wind through the store to find each treatment area, rather than walking into an obvious open-plan. The unusual geometric forms serve to spark curiosity in the customer. The concept of ”beauty” by choosing golden polished brass for the circular partitions and accent pieces throughout the store.

Beel Seat Ware by Selami Gündüzeri

• Designer: Selami Gündüzeri
• Winner Category: 2018 – 2019, Gold A’ Furniture, Decorative Items, and Homeware Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “I was inspired by the clean and minimalistic shapes and designed with inspiration from the human spine system, Beel offers comfortable sitting and healthy posture.” –Selami Gündüzeri

Dream House Island Rural Renewal by Tianqi Guan

• Designer: Tianqi Guan
• Winner Category: 2018 – 2019, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “This is a project for the TV program to convey a notion that makes people more aware of the relationship between environment and structures, encouraging them to care about the living environment and maximize spatial delight and spirit. People often concern grand narrative-themed buildings and usually turn a blind eye to many houses that are humble but still relevant to daily life. Moreover, we pay too much attention to how good a building looks on the outside while ignoring what lies inside.” – Tianqi Guan

The Black House Housing by Buero Wagner

• Designers: Fabian A. Wagner, Sophia Eun Joo Pfeiffer, Maxi Wagner
• Winner Category: 2018 – 2019, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: The Black House is located next to a forest not far from Ammersee, one of Germany’s largest lakes one hour southwest of Munich, Bavaria. Encompassing an 80-square meter plot, ”The Black House” directly adjoins to a larger family home next door, yet is distinguished as an independent building. The residence is characterized by its carbonized wood facade, with rooms of different heights stacked together to create a variety of spatial situations.