Awards: The Latest Architecture and News

Vietnamese Practice Vo Trong Nghia Architects has taken home the top honor at the Architects Regional Council Asia (ARCASIA) 2014 awards. The Dailai Bamboo Complex, consisting of the 2009 Bamboo Wing and the 2012 Dailai Conference Hall, was selected out of 276 entries to win Building of the Year Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in Asian architecture.

The award adds to the recent success for Vo Trong Nghia, who recently won the top prize in the AR House Awards for their House for Trees.

More on the Dailai Bamboo Complex after the break

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The winners of the 2014 AR House Awards have been announced, celebrating excellence and innovation in the design of a one-off house. This year, the jury consisted of AR Editor Catherine Slessor, Ben van Berkel (UNStudio), Yvonne Farrell (Grafton Architects), William Mann (Witherford Watson Mann Architects) and Abraham Thomas (Director, Sir John Soane's Museum).

Read on after the break for the full list of winners

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The Municipal Art Society (MAS) of New York announced their list of honorees for the 2014 MASterworks Awards last week. These annual awards are dedicated to buildings, completed the year previously in the city of New York, that exemplify a high standard of design, and make a significant contribution to the city’s urban environment. This year, all of these projects are located outside of the city center and cover a wide range of programming, from an African-American heritage museum, to a pencil factory addition.

Vin Cipolla, president of MAS said that “the 2014 MASterworks winners strike a great balance between groundbreaking design and historic preservation. We are thrilled that all the winners this year are in the outer boroughs, proving that design excellence is happening throughout the city.” See the full list of winners here, or take a look at the five major category winners after the break!

The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) have announced the winners of the 2014 RIAS Awards. Selected from the 83 entries, these buildings represent the best in Scottish architecture from the past year. This year Glasgow buildings make up significant number of the 13 winners, demonstrating the positive results of the city gearing up to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games later this summer.

The RIAS Awards are held in parallel with the RIBA National Awards, with submitted projects eligible for both. This year, 4 RIAS Award winners were also RIBA National Award winners. See the full list of winners after the break.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the 44 buildings in the UK and 12 EU projects to win 2014 RIBA National Awards. The list includes instantly recognizable projects such as The Shard by Renzo Piano and Mecanoo's Library of Birmingham, but also rewards plenty of well-crafted smaller projects, for example Lens House by Alison Brooks Architects.

From this list of National winners, the RIBA will select the shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize, which will be revealed next month. See the full list of winners after the break.

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The Danish Agency for Culture has unveiled a new award for Library architecture as part of its Model Programme for Public Libraries project, a programme in association with Realdania which aims to generate new ideas about how the design of public libraries can change to meet the changing needs of today's society.

The award, which will be announced at the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in Lyon, France, is sponsored by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects and has a prize of DKK 25,000.

More on the award, and how to enter, after the break

The Australian Institute of Architects have announced 35 awards out of a record 51 entries for the ACT Architecture Awards. The star of the show was Tonkin Zulaikha Greer’s (TZG) National Arboretum, which after winning the 2013 Romaldo Giurgola Award for Public Architecture last year received the highest prize of the Canberra Medallion.

Other awards included an Enduring Architecture award for Enrico Taglietti's 1979 project 'Apostolic Nunciature'; and the Australian National University Australian Centre on China in the World by Munns Sly Moore in association with Mo Atelier Szeto - which won the Romaldo Giurgola Award for Public Architecture, the Art in Architecture Prize and a commendation in the INLITE Light in Architecture Prize.

Read on after the break for the full list of awards

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The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected ten recipients for their 2014 Small Projects Awards, which recognizes design excellence in projects with a budget of up to $1.5 million and with a floor area less than 5,000 square feet. The award "strives to raise public awareness of the value and design excellence that architects bring to all project types, including renovations and additions, no matter the limits of size and budget."

This year's awards include 5 houses, 2 pavilions, 2 installations and a cafe. See all 10 awarded projects after the break.

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Hosted by the Los Angeles Business Council, the 44th Annual Los Angeles Architectural Awards has recognized three dozen of the year’s best architecture and design projects in Greater Los Angeles. From Morphosis' Emerson College to the Los Angeles River project, each recipient has been awarded for their excellence in design, sustainability and community impact.

The 2013 Los Angeles Architectural Award Winners are...

The Zumtobel Group Awards, now in its fourth year, has recognized 15 projects for their innovative contributions to sustainability and humanity in the built environment. Winy Maas of MVRDV and Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA were part of the seven person jury in which selected the winners within three categories: “Buildings,” “Urban Developments & Initiatives,” and the newly implemented “Applied Innovations.”

Ranging from Arup’s photo-bioreactor facade system to Lacaton & Vassal architectes’ “House of Transformation,” the awarded projects have been deemed sustainable exemplars for their contributions to the built environment. 

See all the winners after the break... 

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The 2014 Wienerberger Brick Award Winners exemplify brick's potential in contemporary architecture, transforming the common brick into something spectacular. This year's jury featured 2012 Pritzer winner Wang Shu, who commented on the "spatial and secret" feeling of the Grand Prize Winning Kantana Film and Animation Institute. See all seven winners after the break.

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Yesterday at the Illinois Institute of Technology's (IIT), Pezo Von Ellrichshausen was awarded the prestigious Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) for Emerging Architecture. Selected for their finely crafted, concrete Poli House, which serves as both a summer residence and cultural center on the Coliumo Peninsula, the Chilean firm was the first practice ever to receive the prize.

Barcelona architect Jose Ahedo of Studio Ahedo has been selected over seven finalists and 200 applicants to receive the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s $100,000 Wheelwright Prize. The travel grant, now in its second year, was awarded to Ahedo for his proposal Domesticated Grounds: Design and Domesticity Within Animal Farming Systems, which focuses on the innumerable environmental and social challenges related to animal farming.

The jury lauded Ahedo’s proposal for “its integrated approach to a broad range of issues, and for his clarity in identifying architecture and design’s potential to shape more sustainable models of production for a global mega-industry.”

The Shard has been awarded this year's Emporis Skyscraper Award, bringing the award back to Europe after two consecutive wins in North America - by Absolute Towers in 2013 and New York by Gehry in 2012. Each year, the award honours the world's best new building over 100m tall.

The award's jury praised the Shard's "unique glass fragment-shaped form and its sophisticated architectural implementation", resulting in "a skyscraper that is recognized immediately and which is already considered London's new emblem."

Read on to find out the remaining 10 buildings to take home awards

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Norman Foster has been selected alongside artist Hiroshi Sugimoto to receive the inaugural Isamu Noguchi Award. Presented by Motohide Yoshikawa, the ambassador of Japan to the United Nations, the award recognizes “individuals that share Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi’s commitment to innovation, global consciousness and Japanese/American exchange.” Watch an ArchDaily interview with Foster, after the break...

Joe Paxton of the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, was awarded the 2014 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship for his proposal “Buffer Landscapes 2060.” The £6,000 travel grant will enable him to study the impact of climate change in a number of locations, ultimately to propose some measures that might mitigate the threat of floods, droughts, melting glaciers and rising temperatures. A comment from Foster, after the break...

The winners of the New Zealand Architecture Awards 2014 have been announced. The winner of the 2014 New Zealand Architecture Medal, the most prestigious award building award in New Zealand, was BVN Donovan Hill and Jasmax, for their ASB North Wharf building. Patrick Clifford was also awarded with the New Zealand Institute of Architects Gold Medal for his career as director of Architectus, with the jury commending the "understated confidence" and "urbane and assured authority" of his work.

Another 16 projects also received awards in 9 categories. Read on after the break for the full list of winners.

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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...