How to participate

How to participate WA Awards Submissions WA Awards Winners

Current Cycle: 53rd Cycle

Deadline: Feb 23, 2026

General Information

WA Awards 10+5+X is a well-established competition that offers participants and winners a valuable opportunity to have their projects highlighted and recognised both among their peers and in the marketplace.

If you like to present your work and get the recognition it deserves, we welcome you to participate in World Architecture's WA Awards 10+5+X with your Architecture and/or Interior Design (in Realised and Student categories only) projects.

Awarding follows a democratic process in which available WA Jury Members and Previous Cycle Winners vote for the 10, and willing World Architecture Community members vote for the +5. To vote on projects, a WAC member must have at least 1 project uploaded to their page at least 1 month ago, and the project must be open to the public, having been approved by the World Architecture Community.

In total, there are 3 categories: WA Designed Awards, WA Realised Awards and WA Student Awards. This enables better evaluation by the WA Jury and a fairer competition among participants and their projects.

Eligible Members

Only Architects, Architecture Offices, Interior Designers, Interior Design Offices, and architecture and Interior Design Students are eligible to apply to the WA Awards 10+5+X.

Participation Eligibility & Pricing

How to participate

In this table, the green checks reflect the member types who can participate in the different categories free-of-charge (with 1 project only by cycle), as part of their membership benefits. As such, Professional Members may participate in either the Designed or Realised categories and Academic Members may participate in the Student category with a single project, within a specific cycle, free of charge.

The blue checks match the categories in which members may participate, subject to a fee ($130 for the Designed category and $240 for the Realised category, per project and per cycle). As an example, a Basic Member may participate in either the Designed or the Realised categories after paying the appropriate participation fee. Another example is that while an Academic Member may participate in the Student category free of charge (green check), they may also participate in the Designed category, where the Participation fee applies.

Finally, the red crosses indicate invalid combinations. For example, Professional or Basic members are not eligible to participate in the WA Awards in the Student category.

Participation fees are as follows and apply to the blue checks in the table above: WA Designed Award is subject to a $130 participation fee, and WA Realised Award is subject to a $240 participation fee. Academic members are exempt from the participation fee for a single project in a single cycle.

Participation fees for WA Awards 10+5+X per submission/per Cycle:

WA Designed Award: $130

WA Realised Award: $240

WA Student Award: Free

Furthermore, all architectural and/or interior design projects (in Realised and Student categories only) are welcome. For the Architecture section, projects may be a concept or a built project (maximum within the last 5 years). This means landscaping or product design projects will be excluded from the competition, and if any fees were paid to participate, there will be no refund.

As a participant, if you designed a building together with its interior, and if you prefer, you may participate in the same project for both the Architecture and Interior Design Awards by paying their attendance fees. While attending the Interior Design section of the WA Awards, we kindly ask you to upload only plans, interior photos and descriptions from your project that are relevant to the section.

Architects, Interior Designers and Students from all countries are welcome to join the competition; there are no restrictions of any sort except that of being a registered member of the World Architecture Community (registration to WAC is completely free-of-charge). Projects must be submitted by the deadline specified at the top of this page to be eligible for the current cycle. Deadline extensions, if applicable, are communicated via e-mail and are updated on this page.

Please note that WA Awards is based on trust and honesty, and the World Architecture Community is not responsible for verifying project ownership when projects are uploaded to the World Architecture Community website. In case of dispute projects, where the ownership is challenged and justified, they will be excluded from the competition and any paid fees, be it participation or professional membership fees, WILL NOT BE REFUNDED.

Evaluation Criteria

NOVELTY, ORIGINALITY and CREATIVITY in design that reflect and inspire a commitment to the art of architecture are the major criteria. World Architecture Community tries to bridge the gap between theory and practice; thus, the architect’s explanations in the description sections of their project will be critical for recognition as much as the design itself.

Timetable & Calendar

The WA Awards 10+5+X runs typically for 3-4 cycles per year. For the first three months after the announcement of the new cycle, you are welcome to upload and submit your projects for the WA Awards. Once the deadline (regular or extended) has ended, the World Architecture Community announces the Voting process, which is held within a specific time frame on the WA Awards Submissions page. Awarding follows a democratic process in which all WA Jury members’ Votes (for the 10) and World Architecture Community members’ Votes (for the 5) carry equal weight and are weighted equally in the final decision.

Within the Voting process, WA Jury Members and Previous Cycle Winners will evaluate and vote for the projects to select the first 10 winning projects of the 10+5+X. Following a similar principle, World Architecture Community Members will vote on the submitted projects, and the 5 most-voted projects will form 5 of the 10+5+X. To vote on projects, a WAC member must have at least 1 project uploaded to their page at least 1 month ago, and the project must be open to the public, having been approved by the World Architecture Community. WA Awards Winners announcements will be made approximately 10-15 days after the closing of the full cycle.

Participation Procedure

All information (project description, project facts, drawings, etc.) submitted in project uploads must be in English. Projects submitted in languages other than English will be removed from the competition, and no refund will be issued. As stated in the Participation Criteria section, participants must be registered members of the World Architecture Community to be able to upload and submit their projects for the WA Awards. If they are registered members, participants can follow the following steps to participate in the WA Awards competition:

First, please check if you are signed in to the World Architecture Community portal.
If the project you want to participate in is already uploaded to WAC, please skip 3 through 8 and go straight to 9 below.
Once signed in, you will upload your project through the "Add a Project” page.
Please fill in the information as completely as possible to increase your chances of winning a WA Award.
Please note that you must fill the “Project Type” field correctly, as it will determine the category in which your project will be submitted to the WA Awards, i.e. Designed, Realised and Student. By default, for Academic Members, this value should be "Student". Basic, Business or Professional members may not choose "Student" as Project Type. Basic, Business, or Professional members who wish to participate in the WA Award competition with a designed project must select "Designed" as the Project Type instead of "Student". Important: WAC does not issue refunds for projects selected and paid for in the wrong project category.
After filling in the different fields of the Upload Projects form, you will move on to upload the visuals for your project at the bottom of the Upload Your Projects page. Please note that the quality of the visuals (photos, renderings, plans, etc.) and the completeness of the description of your project will be crucial to get the WA Jury’s and World Architecture Community members' attention, and therefore for your chances to win an award. Important: If any participant uploads non-category images or information related to the relevant category, the project will not be evaluated, even during the competition or after the voting process. For example, a participant cannot present a project submitted to the "Realised" category with rendering images, construction photos, or unrelated materials, or, conversely, a participant cannot present a project in the "Designed" category with completed images. If WAC Editors detect the inaccurate and incomplete presentation of any project in the competition, they have the right to remove the project from the competition, and there will be no refund.
With the recent redesign of the World Architecture Community portal, we now support higher-resolution photos and larger file sizes for a better visual experience on project pages. For your visuals, we recommend:
- Landscape (or horizontal) rather than portrait (or vertical) visuals.
- Minimum width: 1280px (pixels). Lower–width visuals will be rejected when you try to upload them; an ideal width is 1280px or higher.
- Resolution of your visuals must be between 72-300px/inch.
- Both JPEG and PNG formats are supported. We do not accept BMP or GIF formats due to their inefficient size-to-quality ratio.
- Max. 5 MB file size per visual; larger files will be rejected.
Once your project information is complete and the visuals are uploaded, please make sure to click the CREATE/UPDATE YOUR PROJECT button to save your project.
After your successful upload, you will be redirected to the My Projects page. On this page, you will locate the project you want to submit to the WA Awards and click the "Participate in the WA Awards" button to submit your project to the WA Awards.
VERY IMPORTANT: For all participants, regardless of their membership or the category in which they submit their project to the WA Awards, once they confirm their submission to the WA Awards, the project can no longer be retracted or edited until the WA Awards Cycle is complete – it will remain locked. We therefore recommend that you ensure your project information and visuals are complete before submitting, as there will be no turning back once the submission is complete.
Once you click Participate Now, you will be presented with a summary of your submission. Please double-check the name of your project as well as the category in which it will be submitted to the WA Awards. Once you confirm you are participating in the correct project and category, please check the checkbox to confirm you've read and agree to the WA User Agreement. If WAC Editors see your project as incomplete with a project description and all project facts, they have the right to remove the project from the competition, and there will be no refund.
If you are a Professional member participant, you are allowed to submit one Designed OR Realised project by cycle free-of-charge, as part of your membership benefits.
If you are an Academic member participant, you are allowed to submit one Student project by cycle free-of-charge, as part of your membership benefits.
If you are a Basic or Business member participant, your participation in the WA Awards is subject to the participation fee described in the “General Information” section at the top of this page. You will have an extra step in the process whereby you will be redirected to the payment options pop-up, where you will complete your invoice information, and then be taken to the secure Credit Card payment page. Once your payment is complete, you will be presented with your Payment Receipt. This receipt will be sent to your e-mail address on record as well. IMPORTANT: If you do not see and/or receive your Payment Receipt, something might have gone wrong. Please contact the World Architecture Community if this is the case.
If you wish to participate in more than one project, you will repeat this process. If you are a Professional, Business or Basic member and wish to submit more than one project, you may do so, subject to a fee as described in the “General Information” section at the top of this page. On your second submission, you will be guided to the secure Credit Card payment page to complete your payment. This applies to each additional single project within a cycle.