The World Architecture Festival has announced the winners of the Architecture Drawing Prize 2020. The prize categories include Digital Winner, Hand-drawn Winner, Lockdown Prize and Overall and Hybrid Winner. 

The overall winner of the 4th annual Architecture Drawing Prize is Apartment #5, a Labyrinth and Repository of Spatial Memories by Clement Laurencio, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. The drawing was also winner of the Hybrid Category.

This year, WAF also introduced a special prize focused on the global lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. The "Lockdown Prize" was awarded to Airplane Tower by Victor Hugo Azevedo and Cheryl Lu Xu, Robert A. M. Stern Architects.

The Architecture Drawing Prize is curated by WAF, Sir John Soane’s Museum and Make Architects. The prize embraces the creative use of digital tools and digitally produced renderings, while recognising the enduring importance of hand drawing.

"Entries were up this year (39 extra), despite (or possibly because of) Covid-19 and lockdowns. The quality of entries was if anything higher than recent years and an encouraging sign of the ongoing interest in architectural drawing in various media," said World Architecture Festival Programme Director Paul Finch.

Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, this year’s awards announcement event was hosted online yesterday, with a digital panel discussion and an introduction to the exhibition as well as the announcement of the winning entries. 

You can watch the session back by visiting The Drawing Prize's website. 

The 2020 judges were; artists Ben Langlands & Nikki Bell; Gary Simmons, Main Board Director at William Hare Group; Ken Shuttleworth, Founder of Make Architects; Lily Jencks, Cofounder of LilyJencksStudio and JencksSquared; Louise Stewart, Curator of Exhibitions at Sir John Soane's Museum; Narinder Sagoo, Senior Partner at Foster + Partners; artist, Pablo Bronstein; and Paul Finch, Programme Director of the World Architecture Festival.

WAF is the world’s largest annual, international, live architectural event where the world architecture community meets to celebrate, learn, exchange and be inspired. World Architecture Festival (WAF) and the Inside: World Festival of Interiors have been rescheduled for this year, WAF and its sister festival World Festival of Interiors (INSIDE) will now take place from 1-3 December 2021 in Lisbon.

The awards entry deadline for WAF and INSIDE 2021 has also been extended to Friday, 7 May 2021. World Architecture Community is official Media Partner of WAF and INSIDE and will be bringing you the latest news about the festivals' speaker line-up, sessions and competitions. 

WAC readers can receive an exclusive 20% discount over entry fees and delegate passes for WAF and INSIDE for the next year by entering this promo code online: WAC2020. Start your registrations on WAF's website. 

Scroll down to see the winning drawings below:

Overall Winner, Hybrid / Apartment #5. Image © Clement Laurencio, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Overall Winner, Hybrid / Apartment #5 by Clement Laurencio, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Commenting on the overall winner, artists Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell, judges of the prize said: "This drawing creates a labyrinth of drawings, each with its own story." 

"Familiarity and mystery are conveyed with a sensitive, confident technique of great skill and precision. There is nothing loud or colourful, only a realm of acutely observed detail with a powerful muted presence. You can really imagine being here."

Hand-drawn Category / by architect/artist Marc Brousse. Image © architect/artist Marc Brousse

Hand-drawn Category / Dear Hashima by architect/artist Marc Brousse

The drawing, one of a series, is intended to re-question the position of man within the city, based on the ideas of the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Ink/charcoal, invisible ink, using Traitillism as a method, whereby the line symbolizes life, space, thought and memory.

Commenting on the drawing, judge Louise Stewart, Curator of Exhibitions at Sir John Soane's Museum, said: "All the judges were very impressed by the incredibly individual drawing technique used here, which is technically impressive and visually highly effective."

Digital Winner: Re-Reading Metropolis by Chenglin Able, University of California, Berkeley. Image © Chenglin Able

Digital Category / Re-Reading Metropolis by Chenglin Able

The winner of the Digital Category is Re-Reading Metropolis by Chenglin Able, University of California, Berkeley. The project adopts a 'frame within frame' quality to create tension between isolation and unity, between quiet residential and bright urban lives, and between infill and pavilion knitted to the frame of the surrounding context. 

The project is actively engaging new interpretations of iconic historical buildings and redefining the typology of a water temple.

Commenting on the drawing, judge Lily Jencks and Co-founder of LilyJencksStudio/ JencksSquared said: "Layering drawing types- maps, plans, infrastructural systems and data entry, Re-Reading Metropolis suggests a fresh way to map an urban territory, both playful and precise."

Lockdown Prize Winner: Airplane Tower by Victor Hugo Azevedo and Cheryl Lu Xu, Robert A. M. Stern Architects. Image © Victor Hugo Azevedo and Cheryl Lu Xu, Robert A. M. Stern Architects

Lockdown Prize Winner / Airplane Tower by Victor Hugo Azevedo and Cheryl Lu Xu, Robert A. M. Stern Architects

The Lockdown Prize was awarded to Airplane Tower by Victor Hugo Azevedo and Cheryl Lu Xu, Robert A. M. Stern Architects. 

Ken Shuttleworth, Founder of Make Architects and one of the prize judges commented: "We were captivated by the Airplane Tower drawing’s immediacy, wit and use of multiple perspectives while addressing serious questions around the pandemic, interlinking the environment and reuse agenda with the housing crisis and the many challenges faced by the travel industry."

The winners will be exhibited at WAF 2021 in Lisbon on the drawing prize stand and the commended drawings viewed via an interactive video screen. Each of the category winners will present their work on the Festival Hall stage. The overall winner will be presented with their trophy on the final day of the festival.

> via WAF