A+Awards Wrapped: How We Celebrated the World’s Best Architecture and Products in 2025
Call for entries: The 14th Architizer A+Awards celebrates architecture's new era of craft. Apply for publication online and in print by submitting your projects before the Main Entry Deadline on December 12th!
2025 marked a pivotal year in architecture, with new bars set for material intelligence and ecological responsibility, and marked by a renewed fascination with the craft of making. Across the 13th A+Awards, the Vision Awards, and the A+Product Awards, this year revealed how the built environment is being reshaped by ideas that prioritize context over spectacle.
As the world navigates rapid technological change, this year’s winners and finalists showed that architectural excellence is increasingly measured by clarity of intent and depth of execution. Looking back on 2025, these moments form a portrait of a profession continually refining its tools, expanding its influence, and embracing new modes of authorship in a world that demands resilience through imagination.
As the 13th A+Awards continues to invite entries with a Main Entry Deadline of December 12th, 2025, let’s take a look back at the many milestones that have celebrated our winners and their groundbreaking projects throughout the last year:
January 2025: A+Award Juror Philippe Block Speaks on Sustainability, Concrete Vaulting and the Future of Structural Efficiency
HiLo Unit at NEST by ETH Zurich, Block Research Group, Dübendorf, Switzerland | Popular Choice Winner, Architecture +Concrete, 12th Architizer A+Awards
Professor and structural expert Philippe Block opened the year by demonstrating how geometry-driven vaulting radically reduces material use, reframing concrete as a precision tool rather than a carbon liability. His fascinating talk established a throughline for 2025: structural clarity is becoming one of architecture’s most powerful sustainability strategies. Read more >
March 2025 | The Vision Awards Return, Expanding the Landscape of Architectural Representation
Fable or Failure by Alexander Jeong and Brandon Hing, 2023 Vision Awards Special Mention, Hand Drawing
The revived Vision Awards invited architects and students to innovate across drawings, films, models, and more, offering publication paths through Architizer’s newly announced book, How To Visualize Architecture, and the opportunity to have your work appear in Metropolis magazine. As reinforced by the panorama of winners, whose work was as visually arresting as it was thought-provoking, the program reasserted that visualization is not supplementary but foundational to how the profession communicates ideas. Read more >
April 2025 | Jury Voting Concludes; Public Voting Opens for the 13th A+Awards
Finalists in Architecture +Localism (from left): Woven Passage to Cloudy Peaks by line+ studio; Shannan Beehive Observation Cabin by OMNO Lab; Maona Village Center by SUP Atelier of THAD; FW JI· The Rural Memory Museum by IARA; Duling Educational and Cultural Centre by Project Mingde
After weeks of carefully calibrated deliberation, Architizer shared the highly anticipated finalists of the 13th Annual A+Awards, as chosen by the esteemed jury of over 250 design luminaries from around the globe. Read as a whole, the finalists revealed emerging microfeatures across global practice. One prominent and recurring theme was how adaptive reuse has evolved from a sustainability gesture into a core design methodology capable of reshaping entire typologies. The launch of public voting transformed this shift into a global conversation about how resource stewardship can drive architectural invention. Read more >
April 2025 | A+Product Awards Finalists Announced; Public Voting Opened
Finalists in Pendant Lighting (from left): Legato Lighting Design by Yellow Goat Design; Kurtain by Luxxbox; The Dead City Pendant by Mutuus Studio; Lia by Focal Point; Clear Coil Collection by LightArt.
The A+Product Awards finalists were unveiled this year, opening a global public vote that invited architects and designers to champion the materials and systems shaping next-generation building performance. The moment highlighted how specification culture has become increasingly community-driven, with practitioners elevating products that advance technical rigor and environmental responsibility. Read more >
May 2025 | Vision Awards Jury Announced: A Global Assembly of Architectural Thinkers
Watercolor sketch for Meander Housing by Steven Holl Architects, Helsinki, Finland | Popular Choice Winner, Sustainable Multi-Unit Residential Building, 13th Architizer A+Awards
By late spring, Architizer dripped out features on revered practitioners — including Steven Holl, Daniel Libeskind, Lyndon Neri, and rising figure Amir Hossein Noori — who had joined the Vision Awards jury, forming a cross-generational coalition of architects, educators, and visionaries. Their appointment affirmed the award’s focus on representation as a site of architectural inquiry. Read more >
June 2025 | The 13th Annual A+Awards Winners and A+Products Winners Are Revealed
Cultural Arena | New Bund 31 Performing Arts Center by Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, Shanghai, China | Popular Choice Winner, Hall/Theater, 13th Architizer A+Awards
Early summer marked the unveiling of the 13th Annual A+Awards Winners, celebrated through an expansive digital showcase that amplified the year’s guiding theme of Localism/Globalism. The cohort demonstrated how architects are reconciling cultural specificity with global challenges, advancing new models of practice that travel across contexts while remaining rooted in place. The announcement generated extraordinary international visibility for winning firms, sparking industry-wide dialogue and elevating their work across the global architectural stage. Read more >
Gather and Tiers by Foster + Partners, made in partnership with ESCOFET, a Barcelona-based company that works to promote the use of public space | Jury Winner, Outdoor Furniture, 2025 A+Product Awards
This year’s A+Product Awards Winners highlighted a rapidly shifting specification landscape, with manufacturers advancing circularity and material transparency in ways that directly shape architectural ambition. Their digital showcase and global announcement amplified visibility for both emerging and established brands, driving meaningful engagement from architects seeking products that align with evolving environmental and technical demands. The recognition placed each winner at the center of the design conversation for 2025, elevating their influence across international markets and future project pipelines. Read more >
July 2025 | 220 A+Award-Winning Architecture and Design Firms Showcased in the 7th A+List and A+Products List
Nakaniwa by Daniel Joseph Chenin, Ltd., Las Vegas, Nevada | Jury Winner, Unbuilt Private House (L>3000 sq ft), 13th Architizer A+Awards
This year’s A+List revealed a geographic shift, with rising studios from secondary cities and younger practices gaining global visibility through agile, distributed ways of working. The cohort demonstrated how adaptability and cross-border collaboration are reshaping what it means to be a contemporary design firm. Read more >
Lanai by CSI Creative | Popular Choice Winner, Acoustics, 2025 A+Product Awards
Products selected for the A+Products List reflected a growing emphasis on lifecycle clarity with performance systems that heighten control over environmental conditions. The list showed how specification culture is evolving toward components that actively influence a project’s long-term resilience and operational intelligence. Read more >
August 2025 | 14th A+Awards Season Theme Easter Egg in Key Editorial Publication
Shannan Beehive Observation Cabin by OMNO Lab, Qonggyai County, Shannan, China | Jury Winner, 13th Annual A+Awards, Architecture +Localism
A midyear Architizer feature offered an unexpected glimpse into the 14th A+Awards season by quietly introducing the upcoming theme: a new era of architectural craft. The article’s exploration of contemporary work signaled an industry rediscovering the expressive potential of hands-on thinking and material intention, even in a technologically accelerated moment. Readers quickly recognized the hints, sparking early conversation about how this focus might shape next year’s submissions and global architectural discourse. Read more >
September 2025 | Architectural Leaders Inspire Thousands with Future Fest Panel
The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture by MASS Design Group, Rwanda | Jury Winner, Sustainable Landscape/Planning Project & Architecture +Landscape, 13th Architizer A+Awards
This year’s Future Fest explored the 14th Architizer A+Awards theme — architecture’s renewed commitment to craft — with Fernanda Canales, MASS Design Group’s Chris Hardy, and Steven Holl Architects’ Noah Yaffe presenting projects that recenter material intelligence and detailing, foreground the power of human hands and minds in an era of accelerating automation and AI. Together, they demonstrated how contemporary practice is reimagining authorship through place-specific construction and climate-driven design, reinforcing the enduring value of making. Read more >
September 2025 | Vision Awards Winners Announced
In Context by Brad Feinknopf | Jury Winner, Best Photo – Architecture & People, 2025 Vision Awards
This year’s Vision Awards attracted hundreds of entries from across the globe, with submissions ranging from speculative urban designs to tactile models and cinematic films. The winners demonstrated how visual media can advance architectural thinking, not only representing ideas but interrogating them. Their recognition underscored the Vision Awards’ growing role as a platform for creators who expand the conceptual and cultural horizons of architecture through inventive modes of visualization. Read more >
October 2025 | The 13th Annual A+Awards Regional Event Draws North American Designers To NYC
A+Awards winners and their guests intermingle on the terraces of SOM’s iconic Lever House; photo by Zack DeZon
Architects gathered for an evening celebrating boundary-pushing projects and the global community behind them, energizing conversations about practice in an era of rapid change, reinforcing Architizer’s A+Awards as an anchor for international dialogue. Three Project of the Year winners from the region were announced, their work illuminating a new definition of craft — one that bridges traditional knowledge and contemporary experimentation. Read more >
November 2025 | Drawn to the Future: 6 Best of the Year Winners Named for 2025 Vision Awards
Theseus by Joe Russell & Emma Sheffer | Architectural Model of the Year | Additional Vision Award: Jury Winner in Vision for Reuse and Renovation
Among the many exceptional honorees, just six entries were selected as Best of the Year, representing the pinnacle of architectural visualization across six creative mediums: Conceptual, Drawing, Model, Photography, Rendering, and Videography. These winners exemplify the most innovative, evocative and technically masterful works submitted to this year’s program, each one offering a fresh lens through which to view architecture and its role in society. Read more >
November 2025 | A+Awards Regional Event Debuts in Paris
Fortuny-Alventosa Morell Arquitectes scooped a Project of the Year accolade | Photo by Philippe Servent
The Paris gathering highlighted the depth of European design culture, bringing together firms committed to material exploration and civic-minded innovation. The event strengthened regional connections while extending the A+Awards’ global reach. Three more Project of the Year winners were announced, with remarkable projects demonstrating the power of architects’ material choices. Read more >
December 2025 | New Edition of “The World’s Best Architecture” Book Hits Bookshelves Worldwide
13th Architizer A+Awards book cover featuring Centre for Inclusive Growth & Competitiveness for Tapmi by The Purple Ink Studio, Manipal, India | Photo by Saurabh Suryan | Jury Winner, Community Centers, 13th Architizer a+Awards
This year’s collection is guided by a timely theme: celebrating local innovation with global recognition. While the A+Awards represent a worldwide platform, the projects within reveal a distinct movement away from anonymous globalism and towards architecture that is firmly rooted in its regional cultures and climates. Several copies away from selling out at the time of writing, the book continues its role as the definitive chronicle of global architectural excellence. Read more >
December 2025 | A+Firm-Winners Take the Spotlight in Feature Article
Featured image: Yagan Square by ASPECT Studios, Australia
Spanning continents, scales and specialties, the winners of the A+Awards Best Firm categories brought about significant impact, not only in the field of architecture but in the wider communities and environments in which they operate. This year’s top firms reflected notable momentum from Canadian studios and a surge of recognition for young practices reshaping traditional typologies. Their presence illustrated how smaller, agile teams are increasingly influencing the architectural landscape. Read more >
If 2025 revealed anything, it is that architecture’s future will be shaped as much by its methods as by its forms. Across hundreds of celebrated projects, products and visual works, architects embraced adaptive thinking, material experimentation and ecological agency, offering a clear signal of where the next decade is heading.
As we look ahead to the 14th A+Awards cycle, the momentum is unmistakable: a worldwide community of designers challenging conventions, elevating local contexts and reimagining the tools and techniques that define practice. Don’t forget — this year’s season is underway and awaiting your next project! Start your entry now and get in the hunt for global recognition in 2026:
We look forward to another year of celebrating the best of the best in global architecture and design! We can’t wait to see how you’ll contribute to the story in 2026.
Featured Image: Casa da Levada by Tsou Arquitectos | Photo by Ivo Tavares | Jury and Popular Choice Winner, Sustainable Private House, 13th Architizer A+Awards
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