In partnership with Make Architects and Sir John Soane’s Museum, the World Architecture Festival (WAF) has announced the call for entries for the fourth edition of The Architecture Drawing Prize. Launched in 2017, the prize is conceived to celebrate and showcase the art and skill of architectural drawing.

In the spirit of many great architects of the past, from Palladio and John Soane to Le Corbusier and Cedric Price, The Architecture Drawing Prize is an ideal platform for reflecting on and exploring how drawingcontinues to advance the art of architecture today. 

It embraces the creative use of digital tools and digitally produced renderings, while recognising the enduring importance of hand drawing. The organisers invite entries of all types and forms: from technical or construction drawings to cutaway or perspective views – and anything in between.

Entries are welcomed by architects, designers and especially students from around the world in the following categories: hand-drawn, digital, and hybrid, combining the two. This year also sees the introduction of a special prize focused on the global lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic which will be open to all entrants for one of the above categories. 

The lockdown prize will be focused on a drawingcompleted during lockdown or a drawing relating to the changes that Covid-19 will bring to architecture. 

Submissions across the three categories will be evaluated on the basis of their technical skill, originality in approach and ability to convey an architectural idea. Drawings can be entirely speculative or relate to real projects.

This year’s judges are Artists Ben Langlands & Nikki Bell; Gary Simmons, main board director at William Hare Group; Ken Shuttleworth, founder of Make Architects; Lily Jencks, founder of LilyJencksStudio and JencksSquared; Louise Stewart, curator 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.

"The universal language of drawing has a special significance in current circumstances and we look forward to celebrating excellence once again," said Paul Finch, programme director of the World Architecture Festival.

Overall Winner: City in a box: paradox memories, Anton Markus Pasing, remote-controlled (2019). Image courtesy of WAF.

The entry deadline for all submissions is 2nd October 2020. The winners and shortlist will be decided in late October, and then go on display at a dedicated exhibition at the Sir John Soane's Museum in London until February 2021. 

The category winners will each receive a delegate pass to the World Architecture Festival in Lisbon, 2-4 December 2020 and will be invited to participate in an event on the Festival Stage.

"Sir John Soane’s Museum is delighted to host the fourth annual exhibition of works from the Architecture Drawing Prize. The prize highlights the ways in which drawing remains central to architectural practice and is a key driver in the creative process.  With its range of digital, hand-drawn and hybrid works, the exhibition will offer a powerful insight to the discipline of architectural drawing today."

Jerome Xin Hao Ng, ‘Metabolist of a Dementia Nation’, the winner of the Hybrid category 2019

60% percent of the shortlisted entries for 2019 were submitted by entrants who were aged under 30 years old or a student. To encourage this trend into 2020, the organisers will offer a new reduced rate of £24 for all entries by students and those under 30, using the code UNDER30. 

Ken Shuttleworth founder of Make Architects, comments: "The Architecture Drawing Prize celebrates the art of drawing and offers a special outlet during this period of social distancing, because it reminds us that drawing is a universal medium that connects us in a meaningful way."

The third annual Architecture Drawing Prize in 2019 went to architect Anton Markus Pasing with his work entitled ‘City in a box: paradox memories’. 

Judges commended him for ‘the level of depth, the confidence in composition, the pure symmetry and strong perspective’ which ‘emphasised the simplicity of the notion of the box’. 

The winner of the second annual Architecture Drawing Prize in 2018 went to Li Han, one of the founding partners of Drawing Architecture Studio in Beijing, for his work entitled ‘The Samsara of Building No. 42 on Dirty Street’. 

Li Han was praised for challenging preconceptions of digital presentation, creating a modern day Archigram drawing but also a step into the future.

Top image courtesy of WAF

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