“With the growth of the Internet, images of architecture found a new channel for distribution. Architects in even remote geographies were tapping into a new global circulation of architectural ideas and architectural recognition. Architecture blogs such as ArchDaily started to change patterns of production and consumption of architectural knowledge [...] Crowdsourced awards such as ArchDaily's Building of the Year have changed the global map of rewarded offices and buildings.” – Shawhin Roudbari, in the paper Crowdsourced and Crowd-Pleasing: The New Architectural Awards and the City.
Over the years, the winners of the Building of the Year Awards have received a wooden trophy handcrafted in Chile. But in order to evolve and stay true to the spirit of the award, we have turned to our community to design its next iteration: a 3D printed trophy with a blockchain certificate, that will be sent to the architects and stakeholders of the project.
As we close this year's global and regional editions (Latin America & Spain, Brasil & Portugal, China), we are happy to share the winning design after reviewing 120 entries.
Designed by Mohammad Saeed Maaleki, we chose this proposal because of its abstraction, technique, and feasibility to be printed properly.
We also chose nine shortlisted designs, featured in the gallery below, by Jack Taafe, Amir Mohammad Hasani, Tejaswini Walunj, Lena Buren, Israel Melo, 하영제, 杨朕钦, Mehran Rajaaee, and Guillermo Mijares Simal.
We thank everybody who participated in this process, a success that we will repeat in the future.
