The theme of the award is "Educating Buildings"

The Design Educates Awards (DEAwards), organized by the Laka Foundation (a non-profit, non-governmental organization), are accepting entries. Organized with the aim of sharing the best educational ideas and architectural designs with the world and promoting their activities, the Design Educates Awards recognize each time outstanding projects that respond to complex social and environmental issues and have educational value. NPO Aoyama Design Forum (ADF) proudly supports the Design Educates Awards 2023 as a media supporter.

Awards Categories

Categories are divided into the following four sections. Within each category, winners, honorees, honorable mentions and nominees will be selected.

1. 1. Architectural Design: Products of all sizes and types can be entered, including industrial products, household goods and tools.
   2. Product Design: Products of all scales and types are welcome: e.g., industrial products, household goods, and tools. Exemplary projects submitted to this category in the previous editions include a deployable emergency shelter (Henry Glogau Studio) that can save lives during changing weather conditions in Alaska and a bicycle wheel (Kristen Tapping) that filters outdoor air pollution.
   3. Universal Design: Designs that may not be strictly in architecture or product design or are interdisciplinary or difficult to categorize into other categories. Examples from the previous editions include house building prefabs (Urban Beta UG) and backyard facilities elements, which foster the democratization of construction through an open-source approach to building, and a set of emoticons written in Braille (Walda Verbaenen) to build a bridge for visually impaired and blind people to a visual language.
   4. Responsive Design: A building, object, or product that is capable of reacting to conditions in a given environment, recognizing a problem, and finding a solution by interacting with its surroundings and users. Examples from the previous editions include a skylight that produces potable water from salt water in the Atacama Desert (Henry Glogau Studio) and an arts center (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) that can double its surface to provide spatial flexibility for different events.

Criteria of Evaluation

The winners, laureates of prizes, honorable mentions, and nominations will be selected in each category: (1) architectural design, (2) product design, (3) universal design, and (4) responsive design. Participants may submit multiple projects. Entries will be evaluated based on the following criteria: overall idea and implementation, the potential for educational influence, effectiveness and quality of the informative layer, aesthetics, quality of presentation, visionary approach, originality, and feasibility.

Jury of 2023 edition

The Jury of the 2023 edition has been joined by:

• Prof. Toyo Itō (Architect, Toyo Ito & Associates, Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize)
• Prof. Anna Heringer (Architect, Hon. Prof. of UNESCO Chair Earthen Architecture)
• Prof. Achim Menges (Architect, professor at the University of Stuttgart, founding director of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction)
• Lucy McRae (Science Fiction Artist, Body Architect,Lucy McRae)
• Prof. Joyce Hwang (Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies of Architecture at the University at Buffalo NY, Founder of Ants of the Prairie)
• Adrian Welch (Architect, Writer & Website Editor, Director of e-architect.com)
• Julie Payette (Publicist, Founding Partner of v2com newswire)
• David Basulto (Founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of ArchDaily)
• Dr. Peter Kuczia (Architect, Designer, Initiator of the Design Educates Awards)

The full jury panel for the 2023 edition will be unveiled soon.

Submission Outline

METHOD

• Participants may submit multiple projects.
• There is no limit to the number of participants per team. Individual submission is possible.
• There are no specific requirements for participation. Anyone can participate.
• Please register via the registration screen.

Once you join the award, you can register for awards, prepare drafts for submission, pay registration fees, and view the list of submissions.