Awards: The Latest Architecture and News

The American Institute of Architects’ San Francisco chapter has announced the recipients of the 2014 AIASF Design Awards. The winners were lauded for their outstanding contributions to the built environment in the following categories: architecture, interior architecture, energy and sustainability, historic preservation, unbuilt design and special achievement.

Preview all the award winners, after the break...

Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced 21 finalists for its annual Mayors Challenge, a competition to reward cities which propose the most creative and transferable solutions to intractable social problems such as public health, unemployment and transportation. The finalists were selected from a pool of 155 applicants from across Europe.

From the 21 finalists, a winner will be announced this fall, with the winner receiving €5 million to develop their proposal, and 4 runners-up receiving €1 million each. Founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and former Mayor of New York City commented "We need city leaders to continually reach for innovative new ways to address urban challenges – and then share what’s working with the world. That’s what the Mayors Challenge is all about."

Read on after the break for more on the challenge and the list of 21 finalists

Dear readers, the deadline is quickly approaching for you to enter the search for the 2014 World Architecture Festival (WAF) awards. Annually recognizing the globe’s most impressive works, WAF is the largest architecture festival (and live awards) on the planet.

Frank Gehry has been bestowed with Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. The Canadian-American architect was chosen as the award's 34th laureate “for the relevance and impact of his creations in numerous countries, via which he has defined and furthered architecture in the past half century.”

“His buildings are characterized by a virtuoso play of complex shapes, the use of unusual materials, such as titanium, and their technological innovation, which has also had an impact on other arts,” stated the jury.  “An example of this open, playful and organic style of architecture is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, which, in addition to its architectural and aesthetic excellence, has had an enormous economic, social and urban impact on its surroundings as a whole.”

More information about Gehry's selection, after the break...

The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) has chosen to honor six of the "most distinguished publications" released in the last two years with their prestigious Publication Awards. The annual prize awards publications in architectural history, urban history, landscape history, preservation, and architectural exhibition catalogs, as well as the best article published in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians by an emerging scholar. View all the winners, after the break...

To promote the role that architecture and design plays in addressing ongoing obesity and chronic disease issues around the world, the Center for Active Design launched their first ever design excellence awards. Seven projects have been selected to recieve the inaugural prize for their ability to encourage physical activity and active use of space. Check out each of the award winning designs, after the break...

Angela Brooks and Lawrence Scarpa of Brooks + Scarpa have been recognized for their “leadership in sustainable and socially progressive design” by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The Los Angeles-based architects will receive one of 10 National Design Awards given by the Museum in honor of “lasting achievement in American Design.”

Witold Rybczynski, writer and professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, will also receive a National Design Award for his many written contributions to architecture, urbanism and design. 

A complete list of the 2014 National Design Award winners, after the break...

Four projects have been shortlisted for the inaugural Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) for Emerging Architecture. Announced by the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and its Dean Wiel Arets, the prestigious prize aims to recognize an emerging practice with the most outstanding built work in the Americas. The winner, which will be announced in May, will be awarded a $25,000 prize and an IIT research professorship that will focus on rethinking the metropolis.

Spanning the Americas from Chile to Canada, the shortlisted projects are... 

The Architectural League Prize, one of North America’s most prestigious awards for young architects and designers, has been awarded to six emerging practitioners. Each recipient, whose work was deemed to be “exemplary and provocative” by the jury, presented their portfolios under the theme of “Overlay,” as the term “directs - rather than merely reconstructs - process.” This theme will now set the stage for a public forum in which each winner will use to exchange ideas.

The 2014 Architectural League Prize winners are:

Richard Serra has been announced as the first artist to win the Architectural League of New York President’s Medal. Serra, an American sculptor known for his large-scale sheet metal installations, was honored for “contributions his work makes to the way we think about space, viewer and object, site, and materiality, concerns relevant to both architects and the artist.”

Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Center is among seven shortlisted designs being considered for this year’s Design of the Year award. As announced by London’s Design Museum, the undulating cultural center was pulled from 76 innovative nominations and placed first in the architecture category. The shortlisted proposals, ranging from a portable eye examination kit to Volkswagen’s XL1 CAR, will remain on view at the museum through August 25. A winner is expected to be announced June 30.

The winners of the 2014 Canadian Urban Design Awards, a biennial competition recognizing projects that contribute to the vitality and sustainability of Canadian cities, were recently announced by the Royal Institute of Canada (RAIC), Canadian Institute of Planners, and Canadian Society of Landscape Architects. Eight individuals, organizations, and firms - including Perkins + Will for a masterplan in Edmonton - were recognized for their urban design efforts in categories such as Community Initiatives and Civic Design. For information and images on the winning entries, read on after the break.

Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray’s Unfinished Spaces has been awarded the 2014 Society of Architectural Historian’s (SAH) Award for Film and Video, an award presented annually to the “most distinguished work of film on the history of the built environment.” Initially released in 2011, the critically acclaimed documentary reveals the turbulent past of Fidel Castro’s Cuba and tells the story of his utopian dream to construct the Cuban National Arts Schools. You can learn more about the film here, and the school’s history, here.