Award-Winning Architecture – 2023’s boundary-breaking nominees

From daring designs to captivating creations

Awards season isn’t even nearly upon us, but the finalists are already being focused on. Given how long it takes to design, plan and construct a building, then this is not only understandable, but also an opportunity to give everyone involved a prolonged round of applause. So, we were more than excited to study the list of finalists for two of the most prestigious architecture awards out there.

We’re about to run through some of the projects that really caught our eye, while pointing out that the standard is phenomenally high. We simply cannot do them all justice without publishing a book, as the shortlists are ridiculously impressive.

ArchDaily’s 2023 Building of the Year Awards is its 14^th offering. There are 15 categories containing an impressive 75 finalists. The selection is international and celebrates “the very best in design, innovation, and sustainability from around the globe”. A whopping 4,500 projects were voted on by Archdaily’s readers, with 100,000 votes cast. The categories range from educational and hospitality architecture through to industrial, religious-building and small-scale projects.

First Up:

The first on our ArchDaily hotlist is the in the Best Applied Products category. It’s an unusual moniker, and to be honest sounds like a competition for face creams. Needless to say, it’s not! Best Applied Products is architecture that’s added to an existing structure.

Next on the list:

Take a look at this beauty from noa* for the ultra-exclusive Hubertus in Olang – the Hub of Huts is situated in the midst of the Dolomites, and has an air of eccentric elegance. Not for the timid, the new wellbeing extension stands 15 metres above the ground. Detached from the main building, and accessed via a suspended walkway, the individual gable-rooved huts are supported by two pillars clad in larch logs. The wood and brown tones complement the existing structures and natural landscape. noa* describes the result as “a new floating outpost between heaven and earth”. Exactly!

At the forefront of the commercial category:

In the Commercial Architecture category, 1000 Trees by the Heatherwick Studio blew us away. Located by Shanghai’s waterfront, the mixed-use development is “designed to emerge like a pair of forest-capped mountains”. The first phase of the 15-acre site contains shops, cafes, restaurants, new public spaces and promenades. It also embraces an existing park and integrates historical buildings.

Heatherwick Studio ingeniously created a new landscape from a formerly inaccessible and abandoned industrial space. The result is a triumph for the architectural and construction industries. Shunning soulless tower blocks, the realisation is a fresh urban living space where the natural world is incorporated into everyday life.

Finally

Our final offering is within the Healthcare Architecture group, and we’re heading over to the Mexican city of Escárcega. If you’re feeling a bit peaky, then we wouldn’t ordinarily recommend getting on an aircraft. But that was before we set eyes on the N1 Health Center by Kiltro Polaris Arquitectura + JC Arquitectura.

The health centre is foremostly a treatment clinic, but came with a remit to adapt to a wider variety of uses. Designed as a series of rounded bays, the clinic’s construction incorporated barrel vaults of raw concrete. The bays are multipurpose, and work as connecting hallways, doctor’s offices, pharmacies, administrative areas, as well as a host of other multipurpose and treatment rooms. These vaulted areas are intermingled with a series of courtyards which allow for rainwater catchment, natural lighting, covered walkways for staff and patients, and natural ventilation for all the rooms. This unique project has set an extremely high bar for future health-care facility design.

We’re now grudgingly walking away from the ArchDaily finalists so we can give a shout out to this year’s RIBA regional awards. And not a moment too soon, as six schemes in the North East region have only just been announced.

We’ll have to wait until October for the coronation of RIBA’s Stirling Prize winner, but in the meantime, we can mull over the extraordinary national award-winning projects.

FaulknerBrowns is back, and still smoking hot after their 2022 RIBA North East Award for the restoration of the Grade II-listed Newcastle Civic Centre. This time, the £42 million City Hall for Sunderland City Council has put them in the running to nab the big trophy.

Unfortunately, we’re out of space and nearly out of time.

But before we go here’s the North East shortlist in full:

17nineteen by Mosedale Gillat Architects

City Hall by FaulknerBrown Architects

Gilesgate, Durham by Building Design (Northern) Ltd

Godwit House by MawsonKerr

Newcastle Cathedral: Common Ground in Sacred Space by Purcell

St. Hilda’s Church and Kirkleham Parish Centre by Chance de Silva

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