A’ Design Award & Competition 2025 – 2026: Early Call for Entries

Located by the Jialing River, this gymnasium achieves harmony, openness, and interaction with nature. The design is carried out from the three core concepts of earthscape, integration, and openness. The overall project is conceived as an earthscape, like a picture scroll in one stroke along the Jialing River. The city and nature are merged, the architecture and landscape are integrated, and a continuous spatial sequence is formed along the waterfront.

Embodying the relationship between performance and expression, the most notable feature of the project is an array of fixed aluminum louvers that synthesize multiple competing requirements: performance, aesthetic, and constructional. This approach re-couples the façade strategically with both the performative and the practical, indexing the building’s needs against its performative requirements while acknowledging its place in both the tradition of architecture and the urban environment.

Based on Jiangnan’s unique architectural and humanistic texture, the architectural design extracts traditional architectural elements, such as wooden structure and pivot frame, in a modern and abstract way and uses them to transform the building facade to achieve the overall effect of economic and aesthetic integration. The landscape design incorporates local ginkgo trees in Pinghu City, and uses ginkgo leaf texture and color as embellishments to form a unique facade expression and overall environmental governance features.

Forming a figurative ‘line’ between the ground and the sky, a canted, naturally rusted steel wall anchors one end of the structure while a thin roof edge ascends toward the sky beyond, framing an outward-looking glazed expanse. The vitrified façade is interrupted by a series of vertical cedar fins that soften glare and appear to climb toward the sky from the native grasses below.

The living dining room on the second floor connects to the third-floor theater room via a double-height space. An east-west axis from the first-floor courtyard to the third-floor terrace is connected sectionally, while a north-south axis from the second-floor terrace at the south to the stairwell at the north is integrated into the plan. This interaction between internal and external spaces creates diverse indoor environments. The client’s determination to live in this area even under these unlivable environments is formed by this architecture, which allows for such open, unusual, and tranquil living.

CTG Sanya Treasure is a residential vacation community designed to restore our human senses to their natural and heightened state. 38 towers, set within a tropical jungle landscape and beside a river, have two private residences per floor, each with open floor plans that allow essential cross-ventilation. Wrap-around balconies encircle living spaces where inside and outside flow together. Careful master planning ensures an essential connection to the surrounding commercial and cultural facilities.

The Woyun Platform is the entrance exhibition center of the Giant Panda National Park, using the geological features of local bamboo forests, mists, and glacier debris as architectural images. The “bamboo forest” on the ground floor is used as a rural living room, which provides feedback to the surrounding villages; the suspended “mists” in the middle are used as a cultural display space; and the “debris” on the top is used as a leisure space.

This project creates a home that integrates nature into urban living. Designed by renowned architect Shin Takamatsu, the focus is on living harmoniously with the sky. The pentagonal plot features a central courtyard that connects all rooms, allowing residents to feel linked to the sky. A “double Möbius strip” design, with a staircase and hallway, creates a loop, offering flexibility for family activities. This design supports diverse scenarios, adapting to the changing needs of the residents.

This spec home focuses on living in harmony with the sky, designed by renowned architect Shin Takamatsu, an expert in traditional Japanese housing. Takamatsu believes that a house must have a deep relationship with the sky. The design includes a room extending toward the sky, surrounded by simple white spaces. This flexible layout allows the sky room to be the focal point or to blend with the surrounding spaces, offering various living styles that connect with the sky.

The project site is located in the core area of Qianjiang Century City. The project aims to create a humane, modern, innovative, and efficient research environment that combines light harvesting, ventilation, energy saving, and landscape, creating flexible and sustainable buildings. With modern techniques to create a link between the building’s past and future, it has become a classic city landmark.