The 2018 AN Best of Design Awards was our most exceptional yet. After expanding the contest to a whopping 45 categories and opening the competition to all of North America (including Canada and Mexico), we received more than 800 submissions, which made the judging more difficult than ever. An impressive range of projects came from firms big and small all over the continent.
While we were surprised by the quantity of submissions, we were not surprised by the quality of the work put forth by architects and designers both familiar and new. There were some telling trends in this year’s submissions. First, our drawing categories received more and better entries than ever before. This resurgence in drawing, both analog and digital, seems to mirror what we see in the field: moving away from hi-fi digital photorealism toward more personal drawings utilizing a variety of techniques. See pages 70 and 71 for this year’s winners. It was also a good year for exhibition design, which you can see on page 22.
For our Building of the Year award, our esteemed jury was fiercely divided between two exemplary but very different projects. The final debate came down to SCHAUM/SHIEH’s Transart Foundation—a private gallery across from the Menil campus in Houston—and NADAAA’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. SCHAUM/SHIEH’s relatively small but mighty building employs punched-through balconies and a blurred program to utilize the space to maximum effect.
Meanwhile, NADAAA’s extension and renovation of a 19th-century neo-Gothic building includes dramatic, complex lunettes that let in Aalto-esque light. In the end, the jury chose the scrappy Houston project, but the decision really could have gone either way. The panel members were also enamored with the quotidian allure of the Saxum Vineyards Equipment Barn in Paso Robles, California, by Clayton + Little Architects. See this year’s winner and finalists starting on page 14.
Our jury this year was incredible as always, with a very talented group (see opposite page) who engaged in spirited discussion and refined the way we look at architecture. It is always good to get more people involved in the conversation, and we are always shifting our views on what is relevant and interesting. We hope you enjoy learning more about this year’s winners and honorable mentions, and we look forward to hearing from you next year as we keep searching for the best architecture and design in North America!
—William Menking and Matt Shaw
We will be updating this list over the next few days with winner and honorable mention profiles. To see the complete feature, don’t miss our 2018 Best of Design Awards Annual issue, out now!
2018 AN Best of Design Awards
Building of the Year
Winner
Transart Foundation
SCHAUM/SHIEH
Houston
Finalists
Daniels Building
NADAAA
Toronto
Saxum Vineyard Equipment Bard
Clayton + Little
Paso Robles, California
Public
Winner
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Marble Fairbanks
New York
Honorable Mentions
Banc of California Stadium
Gensler
Los Angeles
River’s Edge Pavilion
Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture
Council Bluffs, Iowa
Urban Design
Winner
Triboro Corridor
Only If and One Architecture & Urbanism
New York: Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx
Honorable Mentions
Los Angeles River Gateway
AECOM
Los Angeles
North Branch Framework Plan for the Chicago River
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture
Chicago
Cultural
Winner
Transart Foundation
SCHAUM/SHIEH
Houston
Honorable Mentions
Magazzino Italian Art
MQ Architecture
Cold Spring, New York
The ICA Watershed
Anmahian Winton Architects
Boston
Exhibition Design
Winner
Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Eternal Gradient
Norman Kelley
New York
Honorable Mentions
Living in America: Frank Lloyd Wright, Harlem, and Modern Housing
Leong Leong and Project Projects
New York
Visionaire: AMAZE
Rafael de Cárdenas / Architecture at Large and Sahra Motalebi
New York
Facades
Winner
Amazon Spheres
NBBJ
Vitro Architectural Glass
Seattle
Honorable Mentions
The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Center at Cornell Tech
Morphosis
PPG
New York
Museum Garage
WORKac, J. Mayer H., Nicolas Buffe, Clavel Arquitectos, and K/R
Miami
Small Spaces
Winner
Sol Coffee Mobile Espresso Bar
Hyperlocal Workshop
Longmont, Colorado
Honorable Mentions
Cabin on a Rock
I-Kanda Architects
White Mountains region, New Hampshire
Birdhut
Studio North
Windermere, British Columbia
Infrastructure
Winner
Confluence Park
Lake|Flato Architects and Matsys
San Antonio
Honorable Mentions
Rainbow Bridge
SPF:architects
Long Beach, California
Los Angeles Union Station Metro Bike Hub
Architectural Resources Group
Los Angeles
Commercial — Office
Winner
NVIDIA Headquarters
Gensler
Santa Clara, California
Honorable Mention
C3
Gensler
Arktura
Culver City, California
Commercial — Retail
Winner
FLEX
LEVER Architecture
Portland, Oregon
Honorable Mention
COS Chicago Oak Street
COS in-house architectural team
Chicago
Commercial — Hospitality
Winner
Saxum Vineyard Equipment Barn
Clayton & Little
Paso Robles, California
Honorable Mention
Brightline
Rockwell Group
Florida: Miami, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando
Green Building
Winner
Orchid Educational Pavilion
FGP Atelier
Oaxaca, Mexico
Honorable Mention
R.W. Kern Center
Bruner/Cott Architects
Amherst, Massachusetts
Interior — Workplace
Winner
Expensify Headquarters
ZGF Architects
Pure+FreeForm
Portland, Oregon
Honorable Mentions
CANOPY Jackson Square
M-PROJECTS
San Francisco
Dollar Shave Club Headquarters
Rapt Studio
Marina del Rey, California
Interior — Institutional
Winner
Brooklyn Aozora Gakuen
Inaba Williams
Brooklyn, New York
Honorable Mention
Jackie and Harold Spielman Children’s Library, Port Washington Public Library
Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership
Port Washington, New York
Interior — Retail
Winner
Jack Erwin Flagship Store
MILLIØNS
New York
Honorable Mention
Valextra Bal Harbour Shops
Aranda\Lasch
Miami
Interior — Hospitality
Winner
Hunan Slurp
New Practice Studio
New York
Honorable Mentions
City of Saints, Bryant Park
Only If
New York
Sant Ambroeus Coffee Bar at Hanley
Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture
New York
Interior — Healthcare
Winner
NYDG Integral Health & Wellness
Brandon Haw Architecture
New York
Honorable Mention
Studio Dental II
Montalba Architects
San Francisco
Healthcare
Winner
Phoenix Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building, University of Arizona
CO Architects
Phoenix
Honorable Mention
Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center
Fong & Chan Architects
San Francisco
Interior — Residential
Winner
15th St
Mork Ulnes Architects
San Francisco
Honorable Mentions
Fort Greene Place
Matter of Architecture
Brooklyn, New York
Little House. Big City
Office of Architecture
Brooklyn, New York
Residential — Single Unit
Winner
Terreno House
Fernanda Canales
Mexico Federal State, Mexico
Honorable Mentions
Sky House
Julia Jamrozik and Coryn Kempster
Stoney Lake, Ontario
V-Plan
Studio B Architects
Aspen, Colorado
Residential — Multi Unit
Winner
St. Thomas / Ninth
OJT
New Orleans
Honorable Mentions
Tolsá 61
CPDA Arquitectos
Mexico City
Elysian Fields
Warren Techentin Architecture
Los Angeles
Landscape — Residential
Winner
Folding Planes Garden
Colwell Shelor Landscape Architecture
Paradise Valley, Arizona
Honorable Mentions
Greenwich Village Townhouse Garden
XS Space
New York
Landscape — Public
Winner
Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park
SWA/BALSLEY and WEISS/MANFREDI with Arup
Queens, New York
Honorable Mentions
Naval Cemetery Memorial Landscape
Marvel Architects and NBWLA
Brooklyn, New York
Ghost Cabin
SHED Architecture & Design
Seattle
Education
Winner
Daniels Building
NADAAA
Toronto
Honorable Mentions
UCSB San Joaquin Student Housing
Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects
Santa Barbara, California
Sherman and Joyce Bowie Scott Hall at Carnegie Mellon University
OFFICE 52 Architecture
Pittsburgh
Lighting — Outdoor
Winner
Spectra, Coachella
NEWSUBSTANCE
Indio, California
Honorable Mention
National Holocaust Monument
Focus Lighting
Studio Libeskind
Ottawa
Lighting — Indoor
Winner
The Lobster Club at the Seagram Building
L’Observatoire International
New York
Honorable Mention
Midtown Professional Education Center, Weill Cornell Medicine
Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design
New York
Restoration & Preservation
Winner
100 Barclay
DXA Studio
New York
Honorable Mentions
Hotel Henry at the Richardson Olmsted Campus
Deborah Berke Partners
Buffalo, New York
Using Digital Innovation to Preserve Taliesin West
Leica Geosystems, Multivista, and Matterport
Scottsdale, Arizona
Building Renovation
Winner
1217 Main Street
5G Studio Collaborative
Dallas
Honorable Mention
1824 Sophie Wright Place
studioWTA
New Orleans
Adaptive Reuse
Winner
San Francisco Art Institute at Fort Mason
Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects
San Francisco
Honorable Mentions
Empire Stores
S9 Architecture, STUDIO V, and Perkins Eastman
Brooklyn, New York
Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep
JGMA
Waukegan, Illinois
Temporary Installation
Winner
Trickster
studio:indigenous
Sheboygan, Wisconsin
Honorable Mentions
Blue Marble Circus
DESIGN EARTH
Boston
85 Broad Street Ground Mural
FXCollaborative
New York
New Materials
Winner
Cyclopean Cannibalism
Matter Design
Seoul, South Korea
Honorable Mentions
One Thousand Museum
Zaha Hadid Architects and ODP Architects
Miami
Clastic Order
T+E+A+M
San Francisco
Digital Fabrication
Winner
260 Kent
COOKFOX Architects
Brooklyn, New York
Honorable Mentions
A.V. Bath House
Facilities Design Group
Custer, Michigan
MARS Pavilion
Form Found Design
Los Angeles
Representation — Digital
Winner
Fake Earths: A Planetary Theater Play
NEMESTUDIO
Honorable Mention
Cosmorama
DESIGN EARTH
Representation — Analog
Winner
Public Sediment for Alameda Creek
SCAPE
California: Fremont, Newark, and Union City
Honorable Mentions
Adidas P.O.D. Plexus
Standard
Set the Objective
SAW // Spiegel Aihara Workshop
Young Architects Award
Winner
Runaway
SPORTS
Santa Barbara, California
Honorable Mentions
Noodle Soup
office ca
Lake Forest, Illinois
Malleable Monuments
The Open Workshop
San Francisco
Student Work
Winner
mise-en-sand
Jonah Merris, University of California, Berkeley
Honorable Mentions
Cloud Fabuland
Eleonora Orlandi, SCI-Arc
Real Fake
James Skarzenski, University of California, Berkeley
Honorable Mentions
Marine Education Center
Lake|Flato Architects
Ocean Springs,Mississippi
After Bottles; Second Lives
ANAcycle design + writing studio/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Brooklyn, New York and Troy, New York
Unbuilt — Residential
Winner
Brooklyn Senior Affordable Housing
Only If
Brooklyn, New York
Honorable Mentions
150 Central Park South penthouse
SPAN Architecture
New York
Courtyard House
Inaba Williams
Santa Monica, California
Unbuilt — Urban
Winner
Whitmore Community Food Hub Complex
University of Arkansas Community Design Center
Wahiawa, Hawaii
Honorable Mentions
The Hydroelectric Canal
Paul Lukez Architecture
Boston
Brooklyn Navy Yard Master Plan
WXY
Brooklyn, New York
Unbuilt — Interior
Winner
Children’s Institute
DSH // architecture
Long Beach, California
Honorable Mention
Holdroom of the Future
Corgan
Unbuilt — Commercial
Winner
Uber Sky Tower
Pickard Chilton
Los Angeles
Honorable Mention
Nansha Scholar’s Tower
Synthesis Design + Architecture and SCUT Architectural Design & Research Institute
Nansha, China
Unbuilt — Cultural
Winner
Beggar’s Wharf Arts Complex
Ten to One
Rockland, Maine
Honorable Mention
NXTHVN
Deborah Berke Partners
New Haven, Connecticut
Unbuilt — Education
Winner
Arizona State University Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 7
Studio Ma
Tempe, Arizona
Honorable Mentions
Bedford Stuyvesant Community Innovation Campus
Ten to One
Brooklyn, New York
80 Flatbush Public Schools
Architecture Research Office
Brooklyn, New York
Unbuilt — Green
Winner
6 Industrial Way Office Park
Touloukian Touloukian
Salem, New Hampshire
Honorable Mention
Cooling Tower for Chicago Spire site
Greyscale Architecture
Chicago
Unbuilt — Public
Winner
The American Construct
Christopher Myefski
American West
Honorable Mentions
Urban Canopy
Buro Koray Duman
New York
Anacostia Water Tower
Höweler + Yoon Architecture
Washington, D.C.
Unbuilt — Landscape
Winner
Greers Ferry Water Garden
University of Arkansas Community Design Center
Heber Springs, Arkansas
Honorable Mention
Murchison Rogers Park
Surroundings
El Paso, Texas
A special thanks to our 2018 AN Best of Design Awards Jury!
Tei Carpenter Founder, Agency—Agency
Andrés Jaque Founder, Office for Political Innovation
William Menking Editor-in-Chief, The Architect’s Newspaper
Pratik Raval Associate Director, Transsolar
Jesse Reiser Principal, Reiser + Umemoto
Matt Shaw Executive Editor, The Architect’s Newspaper
