The 12th edition of AN’s Best of Design Awards is back and ready for submissions! As this year’s competition is now open to all projects and firms globally, our jury this year has gone global—and this year’s panel is bigger than ever before.
The Best of Design Awards elevates the best projects from the year, from facades and landscapes, to residential interiors, workplaces, and more. The jury will review entries based on several criteria: strength of the presentation, evidence of innovation, creative use of new technology, sustainability, and, most importantly, good design. After reviewing every category, they will also crown the sought-after title: Project of the Year. All entries for Best of Design will automatically be entered into consideration for this title when applying.
AN is pleased to welcome Omar Gandhi, Li Hu, David M. Powell, and Mónica Rivera, alongside our executive editor Jack Murphy, to the 2024 Best of Design Awards jury. Read on to learn more about each juror and stay tuned for forthcoming announcements to the jury.
Omar Gandhi | Founder and Principal | Omar Gandhi Architects
Omar Gandhi founded his eponymous firm in 2010. With studios in Halifax and Toronto, Omar Gandhi Architects (OGA) is internationally acclaimed for its innovative designs in homes, hospitality, urban infills, public works, and historic landscapes. Gandhi and his collaborative team create architecture that uniquely responds to briefs, incorporating playfulness and the unexpected. Their approach combines site-specific characteristics with creative reinterpretations of familiar forms, resulting in sophisticated projects like the Schlotfeldt Residence and Rabbit Snare Gorge cabin. OGA has earned prestigious awards, including the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices. Gandhi has also taught at Yale.
Li Hu | Founding Partner | OPEN
Li Hu, founding partner of OPEN, is an internationally known architect, Kenzo Tange Design Critic in Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and visiting professor at the Tsinghua University School of Architecture and Central Academy of Fine Arts. He is a former partner of Steven Holl Architects, and director of Columbia University GSAPP’s Studio-X Beijing. Li received his bachelors of architecture from Tsinghua University in Beijing in 1996 and his masters in architecture from Rice University in 1998.
David M. Powell | Principal | HASTINGS
David M. Powell has been designing nationally celebrated, award-winning architecture since 1991. As a former musician, Powell’s work shares vocabularies across multiple art forms—drawing from the creative community and storytelling culture formed by the legendary songwriters of his home city of Nashville, Tennessee. As a principal of HASTINGS, Powell’s diverse body of work has garnered many accolades, including over 50 AIA design awards, and has been recognized by The Architect’s Newspaper, ARCHITECT Magazine, Architectural Record, The Chicago Athenaeum, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Urban Land Institute.
Mónica Rivera | Principal | Emiliano López Mónica Rivera Arquitectos
Mónica Rivera is the principal of Emiliano López Mónica Rivera Arquitectos, a Barcelona-based practice that understands architecture as a social and cultural endeavor deeply engaged with the environment. The firm, along with its projects Two Cork Houses, Social Housing for Young People, and Hotel Aire de Bardenas, has been widely recognized and featured in El Croquis, A+U, Detail, Architectural Review, the monograph Domestic Thresholds, and at the Venice, Ibero-American, and Spanish Biennials of Architecture and Urbanism, among others. Rivera is also the JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor and chair of graduate architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. She holds a bachelor of fine arts and bachelor of architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design and a masters in architecture from Harvard University.
Jack Murphy | Executive Editor | The Architect’s Newspaper
Jack Murphy, AN’s executive editor, studied architecture at MIT and Rice University before going on to contribute to award-winning architectural practices in Texas, New York, and Massachusetts. Previously, he was the editor of Cite: The Architecture and Design Review of Houston and an adjunct professor at the University of Houston. He has been featured in Architectural Record, Dwell, Texas Architect, Places, PLAT, Paprika!, The SF Gate, The Houston Chronicle, and The New York Review of Architecture, among other publications.
Best of Design submissions are open until September 13 by midnight E.T.
