Articles by Daniela Porto

The A’ Design Awards have been celebrating the best in international design since 2010. With a focus on recognizing all spheres of design and creative fields, it awards hundreds of submissions every year. The categories range from Architecture, Building and Structure Design to Bathroom Furniture and Sanitary Ware Design, Street Furniture Design, and many more.

Few building materials stand the test of time as well as copper. Unlike other materials that have been replaced over the years –either due to lack of longevity, sustainability issues, or simple aesthetic preferences– copper can continue to be present in a huge variety of applications and its appeal has evolved over the years. Whether in façades and key building elements or in detailing and accessories, it continues to be a solid favorite for architects, designers and the public in general. 

Good architectural design can encompass a myriad of aspects, but can be generally regarded as buildings/constructions that are planned, designed and devised to be functional, aesthetic and durable. They can often be timeless designs, made for the benefit of the people who will inhabit them, and demonstrate a multi-disciplinary approach to space and interaction design. This is the spirit of the A’ Design Award and their “Good Architectural Design” super-category, which seeks to reward the best in architecture and design around the world.

The world-renowned A’ Design Award & Competition has opened its Call for Early Submissions to all those who would like to submit their designs in advance for the 2023-2024 period. The annual award recognizes designs in over 100 competition categories which are voted on by an international grand jury panel of scholars, journalists and design professionals. With a mission to inspire and recognize good design around the world, the A’ Design Award is an all-rounder competition that seeks to promote the best of the many design professions and practices.

The A’ Design Awards – the world’s leading annual international juried design competition – were established to promote and recognize the best design work in all countries and in all creative disciplines. The Award has 100 main categories, including Architecture, Building and Structure Design, Interior Space and Exhibition Design, and Furniture Design, in addition to others related to the world of Lighting, Landscape, Building Materials, and many others. This year’s edition is now open for entries; designers can register their submissions here.

Why this competition? Why Now?

When it comes to the shaping of public spaces, an airport lounge provides glorious scope for the flexing of design muscles. When a space serves a broad spectrum of tastes and types, what guides the aesthetic? When hundreds of people tread its floors daily, what materials will withstand the wear and tear? And what furnishing and effects does the space require in the first place? Are people using it to fuel up on food before a flight, or as a temporary office? Are they making a library of the space or a crêche; are they catching 40 winks or drinking towards an airborne stupor?

Real-time visualization is used to generate renderings with excellent visual quality from a BIM or CAD model. When integrated into your design workflow, it can also facilitate collaboration and allows all parties within an architectural project to engage throughout the design process.

Offsite construction is a fast-growing sector within the global building construction industry. With that growth, many challenges lie ahead for all parties involved, especially architects, who have traditionally remained at arm’s length to the means and methods of construction. Cost challenges have led many firms to want to learn more about optimizing for offsite delivery methods. To help speed up industry transformation, a cooperative and open-source initiative led by the Quebec Wood Export Bureau has been developing a suite of nonprofit and collaborative tools for architects. At www.offsitewood.org, they offer a free Revit plugin, detailed content packs, and a BIM-integrated early-phase embodied carbon estimator called Carbon Fixers.

Affordable housing has become an increasingly dire global issue. Be it rent or homeownership, the unaffordability of homes has been on the rise. A look at U.S. Census data illustrates a sharp decline in homeownership in recent decades. Although Millennials were the most populous generation by 2019, they only contributed to homeownership at a rate of 47.9%. Contrastingly, Gen-X’s homeownership rate stood at 69%, following the silent generation at 77.8%. Trends of generational decline in homeownership are mirrored in other parts of the world, such as in the U.K. where rates have steadily dropped from 71% in 2003 to 64% by 2018. Many experts point to affordability as a large reason for this decline.