The Archello Awards 2024 has expanded to include over 20 new Project Award categories and recognize even more buildings realized around the world in the last two years. This second edition of the awards program is designed to highlight design and innovation across a wider range of project types.
The new awards will now cover landscape and public space projects, buildings purpose-built for residential care, small-scale projects, as well as projects focused on the creative use of existing buildings: adaptive reuse, renovations, and extensions.
Please see below a full list of new project awards categories with their descriptions.
Housing
House of the Year (urban) - Small, Medium and Large categories
The design of a house expresses the ways users prefer to live. The house can be terraced, semi-detached, or detached. And whatever the environment, successful house projects always find a relationship with the surrounding landscape. This category has been expanded to now include three separate awards: one for a house in an urban setting sized less than 150 m2 (Small); one sized between 150 and 300 m2 (Medium); and one sized greater than 300 m (Large).
House of the Year (rural) - Small, Medium and Large categories
The design of a house expresses the ways users prefer to live. The house can be terraced, semi-detached, or detached. And whatever the environment, successful house projects always find a relationship with the surrounding landscape. This category has been expanded to now include three separate awards: one for a house in a rural setting sized less than 150 m2 (Small); one sized between 150 and 300 m2 (Medium); and one sized greater than 300 m (Large).
Housing Project of the Year - Low Rise, Mid Rise and High Rise categories
There is limited space in our cities. How can we maximize housing on compact sites while still ensuring pleasant outdoor spaces and maintaining views? And how can housing projects generate a sense of community? This category has been expanded to now include three separate awards: one for a building of 1-4 stories (Low Rise); one for a building of 5-12 stories (Mid Rise); and one for a building of 13 stories or more (High Rise).
House Extension of the Year
Homes often need to grow as occupants desire more space. Additions can be excellent ways to transform and adapt residences. Well-designed extensions respond to the architecture of an existing house, the parameters of a site, or both. This category is for extensions to both urban and rural single-family homes.
Residential Care Building of the Year
Senior care facilities, hospices for the young and old, mental health residences and short- or long-term centers for wellbeing: all these and more may fall under the expanding category of residential care buildings. Programs housed by such a typology can range from clinical spaces to guest rooms, support, activity and care spaces. This category is for all types of care facilities which also contain residences.
Offices
Office Building of the Year - Low and Mid Rise, High Rise Tower
Now that many organizations have embraced hybrid working, the design of the office more than ever is about facilitation meeting and collaboration. Which office building sets the tone this year? This category has been expanded to now include two separate awards: one for a building of less than 10 stories (Low and Mid Rise); and one for a building of 10 stories or more (High Rise Tower).
Schools
Primary School Building of the Year
Well-designed kindergartens and elementary schools are so important to the development of young children the world over. Considerations of color and light, of movement and activity, and for small group or large group learning, all factor into the planning, design and material choices of schools purpose-built for children. Which primary school projects stood out this year?
Secondary School Building of the Year
Secondary schools or high schools are purpose made for early-to-late teenage learning. Secondary school students require a range of spaces that support classroom activities, including social spaces and auditoriums, cafeterias and outdoor areas. Which secondary school projects stood out this year?
Public buildings
Pavilion of the Year - Permanent and Temporary
A place of shelter or learning, the best pavilions are also architecturally significant. They should arouse curiosity and invite exploration. A pavilion might offer a program of activities, from talks to performances. The pavilion’s materiality is important, especially if it’s a temporary structure. Thinking about renewal, it will be reused and/or repurposed. This category has been expanded to now include two separate awards: one for a temporary pavilion, and one for a permanent pavilion.
Parking Garage of the Year
Whether we like it or not cars and trucks are, at least for now, here to stay. Because vehicles are large, heavy and polluting, parking garages are typically open-air, require heavy structures and can cover massive surfaces. They can also be structurally innovative, energy efficient, sustainable and innovative buildings. Which parking garage projects stand out this year?
Airport Building of the Year
There may not be another building typology that compares in sheer scale or complexity with airports. From arrival zones to security checkpoints, commercial areas, boarding gates and aircraft parking and circulation, airports might house enough space and receive enough visitors that they are even comparable in scale to small cities. Because of their size, airports often feature some of the most innovative structural systems, programs for energy efficiency and infrastructures for renewable energy. This category is for airport buildings of all sizes.
Bridge of the Year
Bridges combine the expertise of architects and engineers to span waterways, valleys and urban spaces. They can be modest or sculptural, and measure a few meters or several kilometers in length. This category is for bridges of all types, vehicular or pedestrian.
Interiors
Office Interior of the Year - Small and Medium, and Large
With an increase in working from home, the office is increasingly becoming a hybrid setting. Flexibility is important, with spaces for individual working, group work, socializing, and even dedicated videoconferencing. There can be an emphasis on well-designed furniture, acoustics, and lighting (natural, focused, and ambient), as well as greenery. This category has been expanded to now include two separate awards: one for an office of less than 1000 m2 (Small and Medium); and one for an office that is more than 1000m2 (Large).
Landscape and Public Spaces
Park of the Year
A park can serve many functions. Parks can be open or closed, private or public. They typically offer recreational activities and are integrated with the landscape or site. This category is devoted to recognizing this year’s best park projects. It differs from the ‘public space’ category in that parks are typically reserved for specific purposes, may be more focused on landscaping, and are more defined or isolated spaces within cities or rural areas.
Public Space of the Year
What is a public space? What does it do for a city? The most successful of public spaces are not only well designed aesthetically but also serve a civic purpose or tie together multiple urban areas for better pedestrian connectivity. This open-ended category is for public spaces large and small. Which are this year’s most outstanding public spaces?
Mixed Use
Mixed Use Building of the Year
Mixed use buildings are a particularly interesting project type. They are also becoming more commonplace in cities as zoning rules are revised to encourage increased urban dynamism and density. While most mixed-use developments commonly combine residential and commercial programs, they can take many other forms. Whether industrial buildings topped with public parks, hotels mixed with offices, residences mixed with sports and leisure facilities, this category is open to mixed-use projects of every kind.
Renovation and transformation
Adaptive Reuse of the Year
As climate concerns become more prevalent the world over, architects and planners are doing more to work with the building stock already in place. Adaptive reuse projects rework existing buildings or infrastructure for new uses. This category applies to all adaptive reuse projects.
Renovation of the Year
As climate concerns become more prevalent the world over, architects and planners are doing more to work with the building stock already in place. Renovations are a way to give new life to old buildings. Renovation projects encapsulate refurbishments, upgrades, renewals and expansions, or near total transformations.
Small Projects
Small Project of the Year
Small projects can offer big ideas. They can explore new ways of using materials and rework small sites. They can be located in public or private zones, and even sit within or atop existing buildings. What is most exciting about small projects is their ability to serve a purpose while using a minimal footprint. This category is meant to recognize outstanding projects of less than 25 m2.
Industrial
Industrial Building of the Year
Manufacturing spaces, warehouses, distribution centers, factories: industrial buildings make up much of the world’s building stock, and are necessary infrastructure for functioning societies. Industrial buildings often weigh flexibility with responses to unique functional needs for humans, vehicles and machines. Such buildings often also prove to be among the most exciting examples of sustainability and design innovation. This category is for all industrial building types.
Laboratory Building of the Year
Laboratories are complex functional machines. They are buildings that often require specific technologies and special considerations for mechanical systems, lighting, acoustics and climate control. They can also be buildings that rely on a unique mix of social spaces for teaching, interaction, and break-out activities. This category is for all laboratory building types, whether commercial, academic, commercial or government.
Winery
Wineries buildings can be breeding grounds for architectural excellence. Often integrated with rural sites, wineries offer a particularly interesting mix of spaces and programs, from storage facilities and humidity-controlled environments, to visitor centers, laboratories, restaurants and tasting rooms. Wineries often experiment with natural materials and landscapes and can range in scale. This category is for all buildings affiliated with wineries and vineyards.
