The internationally renowned A’ Design Award invites designers, architects, and visionaries from all disciplines to submit their best works for the 2026 competition. With the deadline on February 28 and results announcement on May 1, the international platform is a fantastic opportunity for the creative community to receive global recognition.
From expansive countryside villas to high-density apartment complexes and forward-thinking senior residences, a curated selection of past winners in residential architecture continues to inspire new ways of living. Whether as a professional firm or an emerging talent, follow the footsteps of these award-winning projects byentering your own design here.
banner and above: Valencia House by Lucas Padovani image credit: Fran Parente
In the previous edition, the A’ Design Award saw a surge of projects that redefined the boundaries of domestic space. Recent winners like the Ripple House by Sam Alawie and the Park Wellstate Nishiazabu Senior Residence demonstrate a shift toward architecture that balances aesthetic luxury with functional social impact.
While the residential sector is a major highlight, the competition provides a structural framework for all creative fields. The program offers a vast array of categories, including the Good Industrial Design Award, Good Architecture Design Award, Good Product Design Award, Good Communication Design Award, and Good Fashion Design Award. For those working at the intersection of disciplines, further categories can be exploredhere.
Fuma House by Masakatsu Matsuyama image credit: Toshihisa Ishii
CONSTRUCTING SUCCESS WITH CAREER-BOOSTING BENEFITS
Winning an A’ Design Award is a catalyst for professional growth, offering much more than a physical trophy. The perks include international exhibitions, a spot in the exclusive hardbound yearbook, and features in top-tier design publications, including designboom. Laureates also gain inclusion in the World Design Rankings, project translations into over 100 languages, and extensive PR services, ensuring their architectural visions reach a global audience of developers and peers.
To maintain the highest level of excellence, each entry is evaluated by the Grand Jury Panel. For the 2025–2026 cycle, the panel consists of 318 design professionals, academics, and industry experts. This rigorous peer-review process ensures a fair and objective evaluation, allowing the most innovative and impactful designs to stand out and be celebrated at the annual gala-night.
Yokohama Chigasakihigashi Housing by Kei Tamai image credit: Principal Home Co.
After living and working in greater Los Angeles for 25 years, Steve and Kim Chase were eager to move back East. Natives of Montreal, they wanted a quieter life on a rural site, but without the bone-chilling Canadian winters. Lured both by their positive impressions of the region and the proximity of friends, they chose North Carolina as their new home.
There, on a wooded 60-acre site in the rolling hills near Hillsborough, they’ve built a striking 2,570-square-foot house that feeds the energy of the intensely creative couple while satisfying their high expectations for visual order and uncompromising design—a house that’s seemingly so simple, yet so nuanced.
Set among the towering pines, the Steeplechase House is a place of reflection and tranquility. (The moniker is a play on words, a reflection of the couple’s name and the fact that Kim has a long-standing passion for all things equestrian.) Two elemental forms—steep-roofed gabled boxes, each measuring 25 by 55 feet in plan—rest quietly among the trees, reflecting the landscape in broad expanses of mirrored glass while inviting the natural environment inside.
“I thought it was the right thing for that site, and it allows the building to extend into the landscape,” says Lawrence Scarpa, principal at Brooks + Scarpa of Los Angeles, who previously designed an office for Steve’s company, Reactor Films, that was completed in 1998. “In the summer, it’s almost as though it’s cloaked, where you don’t even see the house because it’s so dark.”
Clad in black corrugated steel, the two main volumes pinch toward each other on the west-facing side, forming a triangular courtyard that’s enclosed on the back by a low-slung loggia with floor-to-ceiling glass. While renting a place to live during their search for a building site, the Chases had come across an old board-and-batten chapel in Hillsborough and were drawn to its scale and simplicity. “We thought we could do something maybe that simple, but perhaps two of them—like a little compound,” says Kim.
The structure’s reflective glass and black exterior give the building an ever-changing presence through the seasons, receding into the forest’s dappled light in the summer and playing hide-and-seek among the tree trunks in winter. It’s well suited to the artistic couple, both of whom worked as art directors and have extensive photography experience. “We don’t get any high-angled light in this house,” notes Steve, a Clio Award–winning film producer, “so, in the early evening, it’s only the prettiest light. And when you get up in the morning, you get light filtering through the trees. It’s pretty cool.”
The two main volumes define the public and private zones of the house, with the transitional loggia housing the kitchen and dining area. As one steps from the loggia into the living area, the space explodes upward to an apex of 31 feet. Framed by a delicate steel grid, the view extends through the trees into a meadow carved from the forest.
Cabinets and shelves are built of plywood with a natural finish, providing warmth to the interior but maintaining an outdoorsy, cabinlike feel. The plywood finishes are complemented by French white oak flooring, which brightens the space.
The private side of the house is dominated by the light-filled primary bedroom, with its generous plywood-encased wardrobe and open walk-in shower and tub. Tucked behind is a laundry room and guest bedroom, whose Murphy bed is usually folded away so the space can be used as an office. (Future plans include a guest house on the site.)
A distinguishing feature is the house’s two projecting skylights—one on each of the pavilions. Playfully referred to by the Chases as “findows” (or finlike windows), the two rooftop registers allow changing displays of light and shadow that emphasize the sculptural form of the interior. The effect is subtly enhanced by the complex geometry of the two pavilions, whose walls are not parallel, just as the slightly angled spring lines of the gabled roofs are not horizontal. “It added some complexity, but also I think some interest, because the spring line inside is actually sloping,” says Scarpa. “It’s almost imperceptible, but you know it’s there.”
It’s all part of the visceral experience of living here, where shifts in weather drastically alter the personality of the house. One minute it can be bright and sunny, Kim says, and the next there’s a threatening black sky with the loblolly pines bending in the wind. Furthering this connection to nature, the couple also helped restore the site’s ecology, clearing eight acres and planting heritage grasses such as bluestem, switchgrass, and rattlesnake master.
Designing and building the house has been a labor of love for the Chases, who each applied a discriminating eye to help achieve its refined sense of craft. While they took a largely hands-off approach to the design process, their involvement in the construction is reflected in the finished product. Steve, for example, built a full-scale mock-up of the knife-edged concrete stair descending from the courtyard to help contractors envision how it should look. For her part, Kim refused to accept the county’s code requirement for unsightly floor outlets to be placed every 12 feet in the loggia. As an alternative, she designed elegant wooden floor grilles that conceal both the air ducts and electrical outlets and can be lifted out if power is needed.
“It was just important for us to get it right,” says Kim, acknowledging the luxury of living nearby and having the time to watch the house take shape day by day. The Steeplechase House is the singular outcome of that opportunity—the product of a creative collaboration between client and architect, with a minimum of artistic direction and an abundance of trust.
Angela Brooks of Brooks + Scarpa is a 2024 Women in Architecture Awards honoree. A celebration of this year’s winners will be held in New York City on October 1, following RECORD’s 2024 Innovation Conference. Registration information can be found here.
At the top of Vivlos region on Naxos Island, a world of landscape contrasts unfolds. A serene, Cycladic chapel sits at the plot’s rear, while the front offers breathtaking views of Plaka beach and town of Naxos. This project harmonizes these landscapes within two independent residences, seamlessly integrated with the land, providing panoramic views.
The plot’s natural inclination inspired engraved architectural forms, positioning both residences at the highest point to capture the stunning view. The design begins with two initial slabs, split and shifted to create the main building volumes, while a third slab creates a higher level. Horizontal and vertical walls separate the properties, provide privacy and support the landscape. Three of the four façades are embedded into the terrain, leaving the building almost invisible from the nearby road.
Inspired by the contrasts between the rocky landscape and expansive sea views, the residences bridge these natural elements. The design explores contrasts such as privacy and openness, inclusion and exposure, nature and human intervention, creating a unique spatial experience filled with surprise and mystery. Each pathway offers a new discovery, lending the building a cinematic character. Main entrances are located at the back, where planted slabs emerge from the ground, leaving visitors unaware of what lies ahead. This transition from covert entry to the sunlit yards, mirrors the island’s natural contrasts. Natural materials and earthy tones allow the residences to blend with their surroundings. Existing vegetation is carefully preserved to enhance the connection to the land. Large openings and an atrium, allow natural ventilation, reinforcing the indoor-outdoor connection.
Reflecting the island’s connection to water, elongated pools enhance the experiential quality.
This project merges modern luxury with Naxos’s natural heritage, respects the landscape’s natural form while framing the beauty of the coast, blending architecture with the timeless allure of the island.
The Wall Street Journal | New York is undergoing a significant wave of office-to-residential conversions, driven by high office vacancy rates after the pandemic, new zoning allowances, and new tax incentives.
Developers have already transformed about 2.8 million sq m of office space over the past two decades, but the pace has accelerated sharply since 2020. More than 25 new conversions—totalling around 820,000 sq m—are now in the pipeline, with Midtown emerging as the centre of activity as large 1980s and 1990s office buildings lose tenants and value.
Architectural firms are overcoming the deep, outdated floorplates of these towers by carving out notches for light and air, reconfiguring floors, and reorganising bathrooms and bedrooms to meet modern residential building codes.
A prominent example is the 35-storey tower at 750 Third Avenue, which is approximately 76,000 sq m, where developers removed more than 2,250 sq m across 11 floors to create a light-bringing notch, introduced a winter garden, and redesigned levels to fit apartments—38 on the sixth floor alone. Citywide, conversions have shifted dramatically toward Midtown, reflecting a structural transition as New York repurposes obsolete office stock into much-needed housing.
banner and above: Valencia House by Lucas Padovani image credit: Fran Parente
Fuma House by Masakatsu Matsuyama image credit: Toshihisa Ishii
Yokohama Chigasakihigashi Housing by Kei Tamai image credit: Principal Home Co.
Al Ghunayman Villa Architecture by Islam Farrag image credit: Islam Farrag
Wave Mansion Villa Residence by Liang Zhuomin image credit: Li Huan
Urban Clouds Congregate Housing by Ya-Yuan Design, Shanghefa Developmentimage credit: OS studio, Rex Chu
