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Architecture is a profession deeply dependent on the visual. It’s imagined, sold, critiqued and consumed almost entirely on the strength (or lack thereof) of drawings. We pick and prod at images presented at angles we’ll never be able to see, admiring the architectonic qualities of elements we’ll never actually experience.

The design and construction community is revolutionizing the way we think about wood in construction. Growing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, coupled with a desire for aesthetically appealing designs, have resulted in a wood momentum that is being celebrated by architects and engineers around the world.

The German Design Council has announced the winners of the Iconic Awards 2018: Innovative Architecture. The awards honor superb examples of interaction between disciplines through an independent architecture and design competition. The Iconic Awards 2018: Innovative Architecture focus on internationally outstanding construction projects, innovative interior and product design as well as compelling communication in an architectural context. The focus is on holistic production and on the interaction between the trades in the context of architecture.

The AIANY + ASLANY Transportation + Infrastructure Design Excellence Awards recognize exceptional design by New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania AIA and ASLA members. The awards program is open to registered architects, landscape architects, and planners.

The Brick Industry Association (BIA) has announced the winners of the 2018 Brick in Architecture Awards, given to “the country’s most visionary projects incorporating fired-clay brick.” This year, 19 projects were selected from 88 total entries, spanning commercial, educational, landscaping, and residential categories.
“Fired-clay brick offers unlimited aesthetic flexibility, and is an integral part of any sustainable, low maintenance building strategy,” said Ray Leonhard, BIA’s president and CEO.
Full details on the awards and winners are available on the official website here. Below, we have organized the winning schemes by category.

Since its foundation in 1919 in Weimar, “Bauhaus” is not just the name of Walter Gropius' legendary school of building – it also stands for unprecedented ideas as well as for having the courage to create the future while considering present global and social issues.
The initial purpose was to create a school of building which would achieve a total work of art through its interdisciplinary ways.

AMKNA, the Dubai-based studio, has been shortlisted for the 2018 World Architecture Festival, in recognition of their design proposal of a cultural center in Sedhiou, Senegal. The proposed “Sedhiou Cultural Center” will provide citizens with a rich cultural, social, and educational experience, all while sustaining the surrounding environment and keeping African heritage alive.

The Australian Institute of Architects has announced the winners of their 2018 International Chapter Awards. Recognizing projects from beyond Australia, but designed by members of the Australian Institute of Architects, the jury has honored six projects from a shortlist of 17.
The projects span commercial, interior, public, residential, and small architecture, with winners hailing from across Asia and the Pacific, including three in Singapore.

French architect Christian de Portzamparc has been named the 2018 laureate of the the Praemium Imperiale Arts Award for Architecture. The prize, given by by the Japan Art Association (JAA), recognized de Portzamparc for his “imaginative architectural style...known for its distinctive features such as bold designs, an artistic approach and the creativity that comes from his work as a watercolor painter.”

Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos ha sido anunciado entre los finalistas de la onceava edición del World Architecture Festival (WAF) que tendrá lugar en Amsterdam, Holanda del día 28 al 30 de noviembre. El World Architecture Festival está dedicado a celebrar, compartir e inspirar la arquitectura sobresaliente. Es el único evento de arquitectura donde las conferencias magistrales de las figuras más influyentes de la industria se juntan con presentaciones en vivo de más de 500 finalistas de premios más redes globales y una exhibición internacional de productos.

AIA Shanghai is pleased to announce its first ever awards program to celebrate China's best design and designers; a benchmark for international excellence.

Brussels-based architecture firm 51N4E have won first prize for their Skanderbeg Square project in Tirana, Albania. The European Prize for Urban Public Space is a biennale competition that promotes creating, restoring, and improving public spaces within European cities, and have chosen this year’s winners for their impressive transformation of the city’s central square.
51N4E’s restructuring and renovation of the Skanderbeg Square is a result of winning an international architecture competition back in 2008. After the project was paused in 2010 for administrative changes, and resumed in 2015, the end result is a series of urban interventions, “inviting public and semi-public neighboring functions to spread into the exterior space”.

The Architectural Awards are very important for the architectural industry, and for innovative architectural design in general, and as an organization responsible for global architectural awarding, "Abdullatif Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture" believes that this award will lead to unexpected change in the architectural design of mosques and will end the developed conceptuality of mosques. However, because it is relatively new, both intellectuals and practitioners are still uncertain about the aims of this award either because of being targeting mosques or because of the process of reviewing those nominated designs. So, "Abdullatif Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture – AFAMA" is currently working on decreasing the percentage of this "uncertainty" by clearly defining aims and requirements of this award, and this is what AFAMA is planning to achieve within the upcoming 3rd cycle (2017-2020).
"Moriyama-San" - a film by Bêka & Lemoine - has been awarded the 2018 Best Prize at the Arquiteturas Film Festival in Lisbon. Centered around the famous Moriyama House by Pritzker Prize Laureate Ryue Nishizawa, it becomes part of a developing series called “Living Architectures,” in which the filmmakers aim to “put into question the fascination with the picture, which covers up the buildings with preconceived ideas of perfection, virtuosity, and infallibility.” In its unique approach, the film “masterfully combines image, sound, and narrative in a compelling story about a unique character and its relation to his house and music.”

As part of the 5th edition of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale program, this call invites architecture students to engage in deep thought, in an exercise of collective research on constructive rationality. This competition for ideas is open to master degree students from worldwide architecture schools. A selection of proposals will be part of the exhibition “Natural Beauty”, curated by Tristan Chadney and Laurent Esmilaire, alongside a genealogy of works, from the 16th century to the present, that relate to constructive rationality.

With more than 590,000 submissions in 2017, the EyeEm Photography Awards is the world's largest photography competition for discovering new talents.
The 2018 EyeEm Awards feature nine categories, including a category focused on architecture: "The Architect" where we encourage you to submit interesting lines, shapes, and beautiful spaces in architecture.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected eleven recipients in its 2018 Small Projects Awards. Established fifteen years ago by AIA’s Small Project Practitioners, the program “recognizes small-project practitioners for the high quality of their work” and “aims at raising awareness about the value and design excellence that architects can bring to projects, no matter their size or scope.”