2A Continental Architectural Awards for Asia- Oceania, Europe, Africa, South & Central America and North America [2ACAA 2018]

2A Continental Architectural Awards for Asia- Oceania, Europe, Africa, South & Central America and North America [2ACAA 2018]

The following report briefly outlines the structure of the 2A Continental Architectural Award for Asia and Europe October 26th 2018, articulating the process and the considerations made to select the winning projects. This report is divided into three distinct parts, the broad objectives of the award – judging criteria – judging process.

Broad Objectives of the Award
The 2018 2A Continental Architectural Award was an open award for anyone in the national or international architectural community who had designed or built a project in Asia and Europe during or after the year 2010. The award announcement was published broadly in numerous architecture publications and other media outlets in order to invite individuals or groups to participate.
The theme of this year’s award was “Innovative Contextual Architecture in Asia and Europe”. Accordingly, the Award recognized an individual or group’s substantial contribution to today’s architecture in Asia in terms of contemporary challenges in the field and region, which had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture.
2A Magazine, the organizer of the award, has always emphasized on unique regional distinctions, rather than global modernism in architecture and the associated extinction of cultural identity. Accordingly, this award provided a context for recognizing and highlighting the essence of architectural identity in Asia and Europe beside presenting it to an international audience.

Detailed Judging Criteria
The organizing committee set up a two-stage judging process and detailed judging criteria based on the award announcement.
These were distributed to the jury members to solicit their feedback. The award criteria was also published on the website. The organizing committee developed a detailed set of guidelines for the jury members to use when evaluating projects, and distributed it to them in advance of the judgment process. In the online review, the criteria were displayed on every page. There were three sets of criteria for the seven categories of projects:

1- Criteria for all categories except interior and urban design:
-Design achievement Technical advancement, including engineering achievements (structural, mechanical, etc.) and innovative use of materials Reflection of sense of place, ecology, environmental sustainability, and cultural identity
– Social responsibility, community, and urban connectivity
– The effects of economic conditions on the project

2- Criteria for urban projects:
– Design achievement
– Contextual analysis and study Reflection of sense of place, ecology, environmental sustainability, and cultural identity
– Social responsibility, community, and urban connectivity
– The effects of economic conditions on the project

3- Criteria for interior projects:
– Design achievement Technical advancement, including engineering achievements (construction detail, structural, mechanical, etc.) Innovative use of materials and experimentation with new materials Reflection of sense of place, ecology, environmental sustainability, and cultural identity
– Social and economic responsibility

Judging Process
The award review had a two-stage process, blind review and discussion review.(Figure 1)

Blind Review with Online Scoring
In this stage, two PDF files and a project description for each entry, and consider them based on the general goal of the prize. The purpose of the contest was to locate and highlight contemporary urban, landscape, and architectural works in Asia and Europe whose innovative characteristics epitomized the Search for Asian and European Spirit in Architecture, and who contributed to a new direction and order for the cities in these continents.

Based on the judging criteria, each project could pass. Each was reviewed and evaluated with other projects in the same category. Although the majority of the evaluation criteria were
common among all categories, each category’s submissions were evaluated separately. In the end the jury members chose the candidate projects for the next stage.

Discussion Review in Barcelona
In this final stage, award winners were selected based on a selective basis. All of the jury members had copies of the competition criteria and reviewed the projects accordingly.

During the deliberations, selection decisions were made in several rounds and by voice vote. Each jury determined his own voting procedures. More important than the tally procedure, though, was the exchange of views taking place during the jury’s deliberations. The final decisions evolved from that dialogue.

Note1: The category of Future in Asia Architecture Award has been divided to for subcategories [Large, medium, small

& Urban]

Press:
2A Magazine organized the prominent event of 2A Continental Architectural Awards for Asia and Europe. The International architectural award highlights World-wide

accomplishments in Architecture regarding modern-day challenges including:

– Miscellany of design ideas and methods

– Cutting-edge technology

– Communications and digital media

– Modern social sensitivities

– New technologies in sustainability

– Periodic economic slowdown

The International architectural award takes place every year to encourage and celebrate regional as well as Asian accomplishments in architectural arena.

The ultimate objective of the event is to kindle an architectural discussion among Asian and European architects and artists through a single medium.

The 2A Magazine Awards, this year under the theme of Innovative Contextual Design [which has been held in Barcelona], aim to recognize and praise substantial contributions to today’s architecture celebrating the diversity of cultures, identities, themes, ideas and experiences. 2ACAA is also a great platform to share, explore and discuss the theory and practice of architecture in a professional environment.

The Awards have been directed by Ahmad Zohadi, CEO and Editor-in-chief of the 2A Magazine and Head of Organizing Committee of 2ACAA, supported by an evaluating jury made up by internationally renowned architects such as: Carme Pinós (Carme Pinós Studio, Member of the Architects Association of Catalonia), Yoko Okuyama (Former Fellow of Kenzo Tange’s Studio, Founder of Sohseisha Architecture and Design Firm), Abbas Gharib (Founder of Studio Gharib & Tenstar Community), Willy Müller (Co-Founder of IAAC and IAAC’s Urban Sciences Lab Director) and Ali Basbous (IAAC Faculty member and Founder of BAD, Built by Associative Data).

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia [IAAC] is Hosting Academic Partner

On October 26th, IAAC has also been host the 2ACAA Interaction Forum in which several candidates of the 2018 2ACAA Awards will share their experience and knowledg that Ahmad Zohadi as Chief Organizer invited them and Golmar Khatibi (Editorial Board member of 2A Magazine), Mathilde Marengo (IAAC Head of Studies) and Alex Mademochoritis (MaCT Programme Coordinator and Seminar Faculty) have been moderated of this panel discussion.

On October 26th, 2018, The 2A Continental Architectural Awards for Asia and Europe 2018 was led by an event that turned up in IAAC-Barcelona, Spain.

With the theme of “Innovative Contextual Architecture in Asia and Europe ” the 2ACAA 2018 demonstrated an assortment of beliefs, cultures, thoughts, and experiences in Asian and European architecture.

For seven categories, 162 projects could obtain the acknowledged score and be requested to apply for the second stage decision as well as the show. Given that, on October 18, 2017, the nominated boards were questioned by the panel of judges directed by Nader Ardalan, Shirish Beri and Waro Kishi in Beuth Technica University.

As a final point, the closing verdict for the International architectural award was made by polling. Last but not least, following projects were carefully chosen as winners of 2A Asia and Europe Architecture Award 2018:

Note 1: The symbol (sculpture) of the award belongs to the first place winner of each category, If they are a group and need more copies, they need to place an order and it takes one month to make and deliver them. The rate of each is 375 EURO and shipping cost will added to the invoice when the order is received.

Note 2: If the winners are a group and they would like to have more copies of Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals it will be possible to make and deliver them, when they request at the same time of registration and submission , and they can order as the winners and pay for each item and cost of shipping.

The Winners of 2ACAA 2018