A’Design Award and Competition: Meet the 2021-2022 Winners
A’Design Award and Competition: Meet the 2021-2022 Winners
“Good design deserves great recognition”. This statement encapsulates the A’Design Award and Competition, an award for designers, innovators and companies that wish to stand out and attract the attention of the media, editors and buyers. These aspects are especially important in the world of design, where millions of products and projects are launched every year, and often end up being swallowed up and not receiving due recognition. To address this, every year projects are submitted to the A’ Design Award with a focus on innovation, technology, design and creativity. It offers a chance for recognition, with the valuable curatorship of a renowned jury and the possibility of a successful international launch. The A’Design Award contains a series of public relations, advertising and marketing services to celebrate the success of its winners. In addition, and unlike other design awards, it is completely free of charge.
Every year, on April 15, the results are released. In the 2021 and 2022 edition, there were winners from 114 countries in 110 different design subjects. The submissions were carefully evaluated by an internationally recognized jury panel, consisting of established scholars, prominent press members, creative design professionals and experienced entrepreneurs who devoted great care and attention to detail during the voting process. Below, we present some of the winners of the 2021-2022 A ‘Design Award.
Oriental Movie Metropolis Theater Exhibition Hall by Shanxing Gao
Platinum A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The Oriental Movie Metropolis Theater is an exhibition hall in Qingdao, China. The proposal concept comes from a conch – one of the most ancient marine creatures. Combined with the unique marine culture of Qingdao, the show theatre creates an abstract and dynamic shape with a vertical conch texture. Integrating the artistic design of form as well as the construct of NURBS curves and surfaces, the elegant double shell concept fits well with the function of the theater.
Xi’an Qujiang Art Center Exhibition Hall by Xiaoxia Wang – gad
Platinum A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
Facing the height difference between the site and the 10 meter green belt of the road, the landscape design gives a poetic answer. The gentle slope of the urban green belt is built into a silk belt trail, leading the walk in. The walk experience becomes a way of dialogue with the site, and also a more close interaction between the site and the city. The landscape and architectural sequence constitute the designer’s narrative of the space, which naturally triggers the emotion and experience at that moment.
SZ Int’l Satellite Concourse Airport by GDAD and Aedas
Platinum A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport Satellite Concourse is a key step in the expansion project of one of the most important aviation hubs in South China. It will support the growing needs of the airport and serve up to 22 million passengers per annum. The signature streamlined elliptical section gives the concourse its unique appearance and spatial character. The layout of the roof skylights bring natural light deep into the heart of the building. The dynamic external facade shading devices vastly reduce heat gain and, in tandem with internal shading systems, contribute significantly to energy saving.
Skyboat Cafe and WalkOn Glass by Xin Yuan
Gold A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The structure cantilevers 36m over the 613m deep sinkhole. The top is extremely narrow, which can only accommodate a small passageway. Skyboat is proposed to span over the passageway and cantilever out to each side of the mountain ridge. Similar to tumbler toys, it is proposed to lower the structure centre of gravity and utilize the minimum area (10 metres by 30 metres), in which way, the self-balance of the structure is therefore achieved.
Haus Am See Residential House by Carlos Zwick Architekten BDA
Gold A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The architectural concept of the house pays tribute to the historical roots of the place. Without compromise, it subordinates itself to them without touching their essence. The structure floats above the terraces, respecting their space and form. The large crowns of the ancient oaks and chestnuts take the modern tree house with its restrained wooden facade in their midst.
City Above the Clouds Multifunctional Office by gad
Gold A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The thoughts of the architects were to balance life and work. Attract the youth from online to offline to communicate with others and embrace nature and provide a community living space. Four main buildings are stacked on double-storey circular commercial podium buildings respectively to form a central green park. The commercial space on the first floor has multiple entrances connected to the city, creating a vibrant, three-dimensional and open ideal city. The architects integrated the natural environment, hence creating the ideal town for the future.
Entry Building to Sberbank Entrance to Headquarters by Evolution Design
Gold A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The intervention should link the two towers and create a strong design statement within the narrow space, without compromising daylight into the lower levels of the towers. The architects responded to the ambitious brief with a hyperbolic parabolic form that rises up at either end enclosing the space between the towers. The column free space is covered by a glazed roof that consists of an intricate triangulated structure. The first and second floors are made of concrete slabs, with the middle level designed as a dynamic curved shape that delivers two restaurant terraces facing the front entrance. An oval opening in the core of the building also connects all floors.
Espacio Kaab House by Matia Di Frenna Muller
Silver A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
Espacio Kaab is a house project for a young couple, where the fundamental requirement was the interaction with the environment and the use of materials visually and conceptually integrated with the natural context, such as stone and earth, giving a modern touch with steel and concrete. The difficult topography of the land gave the opportunity to do a strong and unique character in the area, it is a project with a lot of interesting spaces, beautiful views and environments that blend with nature.
RGB Hotel Homestay by Xiaobing Yao
Silver A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The design strategy is, while improving the basic programs and functions, to make the architecture more open and public, capable of serving more people, and blend in the new building equipped with architectural and structural innovation with the surrounding environment and its traditional culture. Although the second floor uses the contemporary architectural system, the material selection echoes the local traditional way. The roof is made of local bark soaked in tung oil, combined with the modern white wall to deduce the beauty of ancient and modern integration.
Shanghai Edge Mixed Use Building by Aedas
Silver A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
Shanghai EDGE is a prime mixed-use development at the heart of Shanghai, the project revitalizes the old city blocks along Suzhou Creek. As a direct result of the city’s zoning regulations, the building’s shape is divided into four stepping tiers. These setbacks are used to create dramatic rooftop terraces, which serve as leisure areas, informal meeting spaces or event venues. The uplifting movement creates attractive open space that is dedicated to the city, to address the street corner and to create a gateway for the entire river bank development.
Pugongshan Geology Museum by Baofeng Li
Silver A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
In order to promote the concept of sustainable development, the museum was designed by transforming the kiln head into a viewing platform, and using one of the old kilns as the main entrance of the museum, making the mine, the old gypsum kiln and the new museum an organic whole. The building is constructed by local workers, some of whom are descendants of the lime kilns built in the past, with the most common local technology to build this museum. The building skin is recycled from discarded concrete, with human-scale textured hanging panels, emphasizing the architectural The affinity with people also emphasizes the environmental protection significance of using recycled materials.
Rice Wine Town Reception Room Cultural Exhibition by Wei Zhang and Kesuo Wu – gad
Silver A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The site is surrounded by a dense water network. In ancient times, it was the waterway of Shaoxing Grain transport, facing the Dashu River in the east, with good landscape conditions. The design makes full use of this advantage, the three-story building volume is stacked and retreated back from south to north, forming a number of roof terraces overlooking the Dashu River, creating more possibilities for the later use of the restaurant. Through the investigation and comparison of various materials, the facade decoration is made of recycled bamboo as the main material of the exterior wall. The bamboo planks are preprocessed into L-shaped members in the factory, which reduces the on-site assembling workload and joint treatment, and improves the construction speed and the accuracy of on-site installation.
Hyangsimjae Clinic by 100A Associates
Bronze A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
Hyangsimjae Clinic that offers advanced medical services different from conventional hospitals by combining Family medicine and Dermatology. Architects created an atmosphere of private area for healing and cure by limiting simultaneous access and the number of people staying there. Furthermore, they contemplated on the programs for comfort and building intimacy so that a handful of patients can take a full rest by owning and enjoying natural elements such as light during their stay in this place. Exterior design targeted to make a crude and plain appearance in contrast to the chaotic city. This project worked by hand to develop a sense of coarse texture, obtaining artistic presentation. As metals and glass were applied to give an exquisite touch to its rough exterior, this place also reflects urbanism at the same time.
Stone White Villagers Activity Center by Minjie Si and Xianfeng Ye
Bronze A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The design comes up with the challenge that how to intelligently preserve the original structure and build on the existing traces. A new light-structured white house therefore was designed to rise above the heavy stone walls. The activity center for villagers was built during epidemic time, mainly by the locals through community participatory process with low-tech methods. A balance is achieved between built and preserved, specificity and generality, immediacy and evolutionary instinct. The objective is to build open public infrastructure, by reusing the existing traces and imagining their future development. It’s a matter of reading the richness of a specific context in order to plan new rurality, capable of stimulating both villagers and out comers.
Farmer House in Kudara Country Home by Masato Sekiya
Bronze A’ Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Category
The design was based on the concept of a low-rise volume that would not block the sunlight against the surrounding farmland, taking into consideration the landscape and sunlight, and aiming for harmony with the beautiful paddy fields. As a farmhouse, the challenge was to secure space for cargo handling and aisles, while arranging functions within the limited area and proportions of the house. Therefore, all small functions (storage, TV, piano, refrigerator, washbasin, and workspace) were placed on the west side of the house. The bedrooms, dining room, and other living rooms are dynamically connected through the courtyard to create a practical space.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Office Space by Teodora Panayotova and Max Baklayan
Gold A’ Design Award in Design Category
The space needed to represent every employee of Tavex – modern, bold, and ready to challenge the present day issues with creativity and out of the box thinking. Tavex is a unique place to work at, as is their new HQ; the guiding principle is: “Work and Play – but never mix the two.” Walk through the door, and you are greeted by a 6-meter island bar/kitchen dressed in black marble, tall ceilings, Persian rugs, and evergreen plants. To your right, two mirroring meeting rooms with towering glass walls. Two balcony floors accommodate offices, meeting rooms, and training facilities. Glass walls and custom lights create all the rift necessary.
Iron Ore Center Production Command by Saiwen Liu
Silver A’ Design Award in Design Category
Daye iron ore has a long exploitation history, for over 1700 years until now. The rest mine resources exploitation age limit is less than 10 years. In order to not make the waste due to the repeated investments, when the central control hall was designed, it was considered its exhibition function, that is to meet the requirements of current enterprise central control operation, and also offer a small-scale museum for the future tourism development. The feeling of time tunnel which is built by the linear lighting would connect the modern times with the past, let the whole central control hall design flavour to be uncopyable and unique.
Fusing with Nature Office Design by DB and B Pte Ltd
Silver A’ Design Award in Design Category
Drawing insights on collaboration patterns and the needs of different departments, it was planned a diverse range of configurations to suit different group sizes and work settings. This agile design creates a palette of place that encourages people to change postures, move around throughout the day, and be more engaged with their workplace. With a focus on employee wellness and sustainability, the design team sought to create a pleasant work environment with the use of thematic collaboration hubs that evoke the dynamic qualities of nature, bringing the outdoors in to fuse workspace and nature into one.
Jinan Cultural Archives Center Library by Muchuan Xu, Minxi Cai and Xin Yan
Silver A’ Design Award in Design Category
As a very iconic urban cultural building, the library provides a place for residents to develop a good reading habit, and facilitates them to carry out various social, cultural, entertainment, and sports activities, and builds sharing community. In response to the theme of sharing and the trend of the era, it was started from people’s perception and experience, optimized the sight relationship in the space, placed space nodes, added functional spaces, reorganized people’s social behavior, and promoted the realization of “shared knowledge”.
Joaquim Folding Screen by Pedro Galaso
Silver A’ Design Award in Design Category
The main goal was to create a piece of furniture that could provide users with various options together with connecting people and nature, a pungent trend during pandemic times. Made of carbon steel and pink peroba, this piece can be used as a dividing screen, bookshelf and mobile vertical garden. This piece covers almost every audience. Joaquim is versatile, carries a strong personality and its functionality is dictated by the way the piece is laid out in the room.
Xizhimen Port Apartment by Zhe Wang
Silver A’ Design Award in Design Category
As a trendy apartment for innovative young people, its appearance needs to jump out of the surrounding old community environment, but can not affect the harmonious coexistence. Inspired by the scenery of the lunar eclipse, the facade is designed with bright colors which bring rich expression. The inside of the window sleeve changes from orange at the top to pale yellow at the bottom, like the color spectrum of the lunar eclipse, and also celebrating Beijing’s golden autumn while the Port Apartment opens in October.
Check out the full list of winners of the 2020-2021 edition, plus all the categories considered in the awards. Registration for next year’s A’ Award Design Award is now open. To sign up and give your work a chance to gain the recognition it deserves, visit to this link.
