Entries will be assessed by an international jury chaired by AR Editor Catherine Slessor. This year’s jurors are Ben van Berkel (UNStudio), Yvonne Farrell(Grafton Architects), William Mann (Witherford Watson Mann Architects) and Abraham Thomas (Director, Soane Museum).

BEN VAN BERKEL

Ben Van Berkel is Co-Founder Principal Architect for UNStudio since 1999. He studied architecture at the at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Architectural Association in London, receiving the AA Diploma with Honours in 1987. He worked in a series of projects such as The Moebius House, the Prince Claus Bridge and has been visiting lecturer at Princeton and has taught in Columbia University, UCLA and the Berlage Institute.

YVONNE FARRELL

Yvonne Farrell co-founded Dublin-based Grafton Architects with Shelley McNamara in 1978. They won the World Building of the Year award in 200 and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize for the scheme for the University of Limerick. Grafton was also shortlisted in the contest to design a new £90 million Global Centre for Social Sciences for the London School of Economics.

WILLIAM MANN

William Mann was born in 1966 and studied architecture at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University, completing his diploma in 1991. He worked in a number of offices in London and Europe, including Tim Ronalds Architects, where he worked with Chris Watson on the 480 seat Landmark Theatre, Ilfracombe. He has lectured and written extensively in Europe, with articles published in Archis, Architecture and Urbanism, Architecture Today, and Oase, and contributions to a number of books. William is a Guest Practitioner at the London School of Economics Cities Programme.

ABRAHAM THOMAS

Abraham Thomas is Curator of Designs at the V&A and lead curator for architecture. In the past, he has curated the V&A’s Heatherwick Studio: Architect Build Small Spaces, On the Threshold: The Changing Face of Housing and Paper Movies: Graphic Design and Photography at Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue.

CATHERINE SLESSOR

Catherine Slessor is Editor of The Architectural Review. She studied architecture at the University of Edinburgh and after qualifying as an architect, worked in private practice for a time in London. In 1987 she joined the Architects’ Journal as a Technical Editor, and subsequently moved to the AR. In a long career as an architectural editor, critic and writer she has also contributed to a variety of international architecture and design magazines, among them Architectural Record (USA), Arkitektur (Sweden), De Architect (The Netherlands) and Bauwelt (Germany).

Her selected publications include Eco Tech, a study of the relationship between High Tech architecture and environmental awareness, and Concrete Regionalism which considers the influence of vernacular traditions on contemporary practice. She has lectured in the UK, USA, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka and Argentina and has also been a guest critic at the University of Edinburgh and Oxford Brookes University.

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