Swiss Architectural Award 2022
Image: DnA_Design and Architecture, reuse of the Jinyun quarries, Zhejiang Province, China, 2021-2022.
© Image: Wang Ziling, Courtesy of DnA_Design and Architecture
ARCHITECTURE
Xu Tiantian
Swiss Architectural Award
Xu Tiantian, founder of DnA Design and Architecture studio (China), is the winner of the eighth Swiss Architectural Award. Xu Tiantian was awarded for the reuse of the Shimen Bridge over the Songyin River, the tofu factory in Caizhai Village and the reuse of the Jinyun quarries. The jury was convinced by the successful combination between the civic instances animating the works (as they aim to serve local communities) and the quality of the proposed architecture, characterised by a marked attention to the context, by a precise and poetic attitude at the same time, and by the blending of different scales and themes, between architecture and infrastructure, between permanent and ephemeral, between reuse and ex-novo intervention.
About the Swiss Architectural Award
FRAME Awards
Image: Ohlab, Paseo Mallorca 15, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, completion 2022. Image © José Hevia
ARCHITECTURE
Paseo Mallorca 15 by Ohlab
Winner for December
The Ohlab-designed residential complex Paseo Mallorca 15 has been named the FRAME Awards winner for December, a recognition for the way it merges human-centric design, sustainability efforts and innovative planning. Its construction ensures maximum energy efficiency and facilitates the biophilic seamlessness between interior and exterior. Most of the interior materials are local to highlight the essence of the Mediterranean.
Wallpaper Design Awards 2023
Image: India Mahdavi, The Gallery at Sketch, London, 2022. Image © Edmund Dabney
DESIGN
India Mahdavi
Designer of the Year
India Mahdavi was named Wallpaper Designer of the Year 2023. India Mahdavi’s most iconic interior, The Gallery at Sketch got a makeover earlier this year. The French-Lebanese architect transformed the candy pink paradise she created with David Shrigley in 2014 into a more subdued space, in collaboration with artist Yinka Shonibare and with contributions from African craftspeople, who created unique objects and textiles for the interior. Colour is the starting point of Mahdavi’s designs, which combined with the experience of a space or object and a sense of joie de vivre, forms the basis for all of her work.
About the Wallpaper Design Awards
New Year Honours List 2023
Image: John Akomfrah, Five Murmurations, 2021.
Three channel HD black and white video installation, 7:1 sound. 54 min 39 secs. ed. of 5 + 2 AP
ART | ARCHITECTURE
John Akomfrah
Grayson Perry
Lesley Lokko
New Year Honours List
British artists John Akomfrah and Grayson Perry were knighted as a part of the 2023 New Years Honours. Akomfrah, who left Ghana as a child, has focused much of his work on displacement, imperialism, and slavery as well as intense meditations on environmental harm. He works primarily with art films and multi-screen film installations. Grayson Perry, winner of the Turner Prize in 2003, is a much-beloved British artist whose television show Grayson’s Art Club began airing on Channel 4 in 2020 to provide some relief to the British public during COVID-19 lockdowns. Ghanian-Scottish architect, academic, and novelist Lesley Lokko was also recognized for her services to architecture and education. She was announced as the Curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, which will be held from May 20 to November 26, 2023.
About the New Year Honours List
2022 AR House awards
Image: Kochi Architect’s Studio, Yuka to Tenjo, Tokyo, Japan. © Kochi Architect's Studio
ARCHITECTURE
Yuka to Tenjo by Kochi Architect’s Studio
AR House
The Yuka to Tenjo (Floor and Ceiling) project by Kochi Architect’s Studio is the renovation of a postwar house, designed for a family with two young children. The internal transformation of such row house in Tokyo is a promising way forward in a city that tends to favour demolition. As the name of the project suggests, the core idea was to open the house up by cutting into the existing floors and ceilings to break up the floor plate. This is a house designed in section, where two standard-height floors have been remodelled into platforms of varying heights to allow light and views between the different levels. The ludic proportions include a level too low for adults, but the perfect height for children.
Ruth Baumgarte Art Award
Image: Athi-Patra Ruga, Auto Exotic / Auto Erotic, 2022, crayon à l’huile et pastel sur toile, 80 x 110 cm.
© What if the World Gallery (Cape Town)
ART
Athi-Patra Ruga
Ruth Baumgarte Art Award
South African artist Athi-Patra Ruga received the 8th Ruth Baumgarte Art Award. Athi-Patra Ruga works with performance, video, textiles, and printmaking to explore notions of utopia and dystopia, materiality, and memory culture. His opulent cross-stitch tapestries, sometimes enriched with objet trouvé, have particular radiance. Ruga's work relates the body to sensuality, culture, and ideology. Themes of identity, sexuality, memory, and power permeate his work. Ruga uses his utopia as a lens through which to process the troubled history of a colonial past, critique the present, and propose a possible humanist vision for the future.
