first shiguangli

© Zhang Qilin

The A’ Design Award & Competition, the World’s largest and most diffused international design awards, announced the 2021 – 2022 design competition results in May 2022.

Entries were carefully evaluated by an international jury panel composed of established scholars, prominent press members, creative design professionals, and experienced entrepreneurs who devoted great care and attention to details.

There were 2022 winners from 114 countries in 110 different design disciplines in this edition. Entries were carefully evaluated by an internationally influential jury panel composed of established scholars, prominent press members, creative design professionals, and experienced entrepreneurs who devoted great care and attention to details while voting each entry.

Design enthusiasts, aficionados, and editors worldwide are invited to get fresh design inspiration and discover the latest trends in arts, architecture, and technology by visiting the A’ Design Awards’ online gallery of winners at http://www.designmag.org, which features all top designs from the 2021 – 2022 International A’ Design Competition as well as previously awarded works from past years.

In today’s post, we’ve rounded up 20 of the winners of the 2022 edition.

Huanghesong Theatre Cultural Venues by Xuelin Wu

huanghesong theatre

© Gold Mantis, Huanghesong Theatre, 2021

  • 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

rice wine town reception room

© Li Yao | The view across the river, 2021

  • 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

bamboo pavilion

© Manuel Lap Yan Lam

  • 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

monopitched roof

© Akira Kita

  • 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

double skin

© Masayoshi Ishii

  • 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

Kujdane Holiday House by Yaser Rashid Shomali and Yasin Rashid Shomali

© Yasin Rashid Shomali, 2021

  • 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

Slab Hill Lifestyle Lab by Greentown China Holdings Limited

© LI YI, MZ STUDIOS

  • 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.”

Cardona Cabin Timber Building by Abodo Wood

Cardona Cabin Timber Building by Abodo Wood

© Simon Devitt

  • Designer: Abodo Wood Ltd, Assembly Architects Ltd and Dunlop Builders
  • Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
  • Inspiration: “The inspiration for this project and building was to showcase how the reduction of carbon footprint can be achieved when building premium homes and structures, as a result of thinking differently. The design inspiration of the building’s gable form is derived from the Central Otago stone shed, though the traditional appearance has been abstracted.”

Kaisa Yuebanshan Community Center by Shenzhen TIANHUA & Kaisa Group

Kaisa Yuebanshan Community Center by Shenzhen TIANHUA & Kaisa Group

© Jiuli Culture, Kaisa Yuebanshan, 2021.

  • Designer: Zheng Jian, Assistant Designer: Li Shengpeng, Du Bangguo, Xu Yixiang and Xue Ming
  • Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
  • Inspiration: “The designers have excavated the local culture of Zhongshan and absorbed the architectural layout and cultural connotation of the Chen Family Ancestral Hall. They hope that the Life Aesthetics Hall will also have a multi-dimensional space to accommodate the daily real public life of the crowd. Based on the warm climate of Lingnan, architecture and landscape are closely related.”

Beach Cabin on the Baltic Sea Hospitality by Peter Kuczia

beach cabin on the baltic sea

© Alek Pluta

  • Designer: Peter Kuczia
  • Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
  • Inspiration: “The building is located in the north of Poland, in a climate zone where temperatures are moderate for most of the year. The winter garden contributes to passive solar energy harvesting through its glazing and to improving the energy balance of the building. In this way, the building not only opens beautiful views of the scenic landscape but also has ecological advantages.”

City Above the Clouds Multifunctional Office by gad

city above the clouds

© YAOLI STUDIO

  • Designer: Project Director: Zhang Wei, Lead Designer: He Zhen, Architects: Wu Xiaodong, Zheng Weijian
  • Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
  • Inspiration: “Inspired by keywords such as ideal city and future community, the architects created a futurist architectural form that focuses on openness, cooperation, and sharing. The idea of architects is to balance life and work. Attract the youth from online to offline to communicate with others and embrace nature, and provide a community living space. From the combination of office and commercial businesses to the sharing of production resources, creating a new way of working and living is what we need.”

Nanning Tanjing Display Center by Shanghai PTArchitects

nanning tanjing

© Yuan Yang

  • Designer: Hu Qiao, Li Lin
  • Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
  • Inspiration: “Located in the Core Living Area of Wuxiang Lake, Nanning, Guangxi Province, Tanjing Display Center enjoys easy traffic access and complete surrounding facilities. Upholding the concept to show respect for history and reverence for the land, architects have integrated the diverse cultural veins of Nanning to create Tanjing community facility series under “One City, One Tanjing”. Throughout Tanjing architecture series, there is no consistent style or aesthetics, the only connection lies in the living environment that people feel is closely related to the current urban conditions.

Haus Am See Residential House by Carlos Zwick Architekten BDA

Haus Am See Residential House by Carlos Zwick Architekten BDA

© José Campos

  • Designers: Carlos Zwick and Visualizer: Mejo C. Joy
  • Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
  • Inspiration: “The architectural concept of the house pays tribute to the historical roots of the place. Without compromise, it subordinates itself to them without touching their essence. The structure floats above the terraces, respecting their space and form.”

Zenstay Hotel by Shengzhe Shen

Zenstay Hotel by Shengzhe Shen

© Weiqi Jin, Main facade, 2020.

  • Designers: Shengzhe Shen, Architect: Yixin Guo, and Structural Design: Wei Chen
  • Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
  • Inspiration: “Zenstay Boutique Hotel is the ideal home for a post-80s couple on Dongji Island, the eastern end of mainland China, an original stone house on a hillside. Watching tides rise and fall, weathered by time and elements, stone houses create the rustic island culture and the beauty of years. The “local dwelling” and “natural texture” were the entry points for the design.”

Xizhimen Port Apartment by Zhe Wang

Xizhimen Port Apartment by Zhe Wang

© Jin Weiqi

  • Designer: Wang Zhe, Shi Wei, Wen Zewei, Wang Meilin, Zhang Yan, Han Qi and Hong Wei
  • Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
  • Inspiration: “As a trendy apartment for innovative young people, its appearance needs to jump out of the surrounding old community environment, but can not affect the harmonious coexistence. Inspired by the scenery of the lunar eclipse, the facade is designed with bright colors which bring rich expression. The inside of the window sleeve changes from orange at the top to pale yellow at the bottom, like the color spectrum of the lunar eclipse, and also celebrating Beijing’s golden autumn while the Port Apartment opens in October.”

Object Splash Proof Partition by Akira Nakagomi

Object Splash Proof Partition by Akira Nakagomi

© Akira Nakagomi Design

  • Designer: Akira Nakagomi
  • Winner Category: Winner in Furniture Design Category, 2021 – 2022.
  • Inspiration: “Due to the influence of Covid19, there are many partitions in living space. Most of these partitions are temporary and cheaply designed. Therefore, we decided to develop a product that focuses on both aesthetics and function, like an art piece, in order to turn the negative image of partitions for Corona into a product that adds color to our lives. In addition, our goal was to create a product that would add color to the space like an art piece, rather than becoming unnecessary after the corona was finished.”

Push Collection Armchair by Moredesign

Push Collection Armchair by Moredesign

© Alessandro D Bon

  • Designer: Alessandro Morello, Riccardo Bertolla and Paola Zanovello
  • Winner Category: Furniture Design Category, 2021 – 2022.
  • Inspiration: “In the genesis of this project there is certainly a strong minimalist influence. The idea that Moredesign tried to translate into form concerns exactly the reduction of the armchair design to a minimum in order to lay bare the essence of the elements. A representative example of this purpose, from a design point of view, it the version in which the backrest has no upholstery.”

The Bevel Sofa by Sara Hayat

The Bevel Sofa by Sara Hayat

© Sara Hayat, 2021.

  • Designer: Sara Hayat
  • Winner Category: Furniture Design Category, 2021 – 2022.
  • Inspiration: “The inspiration for this piece was actually from another piece of furniture I had designed. We wanted a tetris-type sofa where different pieces come together to make a warm and comfortable sofa. While working with different shapes and figuring out how we wanted to present this idea, we settled on the beveled edges for each cushion, which inspired the rest of the piece too.”

Shingle Residence L011 Residential House by Stephan Maria Lang

Shingle Residence L011 Residential House by Stephan Maria Lang

© Sebastian Kolm

  • Designer: Hans Kreye architect and Diana Hess interior designer
  • Winner Category: 2021 – 2022, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
  • Inspiration: “The plastic beauty of the building is architecturally designed in perfect harmony with the natural splendor of its surroundings and the needs of a patchwork family of five Kids. The quality and beauty of the project lay in hidden details, in the surprising views, in the play of light and shadow, in the integration of landscape, garden, and interior into a Gesamtkunstwerk, an integrated and holistic masterpiece of architecture.”

First Shiguangli Marketing Center by Shanhejinyuan

first shiguangli

© Zhang Qilin

  • Designers: Shanhejinyuan
  • Winner Category: Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Category, 2021 – 2022.
  • Inspiration: “Some people say that a city is like an island, and we are willing to turn it into an island about books. Let the time slow down, let the heart flow slowly on a flat boat formed by the collection of words, explore a book island, and create a “de-sales” sales office.”

Registration for A’ Design Award & Competition 2022-2023 period is now open
Results will be announced to the public on May 2023.