This year, the Prize attracted 138 entries with a strong majority of hand-drawn entries. As in previous years, the submissions received were from all over the world, attesting to the truly international nature of the competition.

The 2022 Winner of the Hand-Drawn Category is ‘The Spirit of Mountain’ by Weicheng Ye.  Drawn with pencil, the work explores the relationship between the man-made and natural. The Architecture Drawing Prize Jury Chair and Director of the World Architecture Festival (WAF), Paul Finch, describes the work:

“This is a drawing of great delicacy which highlights the difference between a tall-building aesthetic, and the possibility of disrupting it in a creative way via the insertion of nature as artistic intervention. A very worthy winner.”

The 2022 Hybrid Category winner is ‘Fitzroy Food Institute’ by Samuel Wen. The drawing explores themes around Chinese culture, globalisation and automation. Ken Shuttleworth, founder of Make Architects and one of the eight Prize judges, comments:

“Fitzroy Food Institute stands out for its well-considered and subtle use of colour. It’s a very accessible drawing looking over a shared meal at a table; yet it is full of architectural interest featuring not only a plan, but sections and elevations as well as detail. A conceptually original and genuinely delightful entry.”

Anton Markus Pasing who was the Overall Winner of The Architecture Drawing Prize in 2019 was selected as Digital Category winner this year. His drawing ‘The Wall’ plays on ideas around the beginning, the end and the finite.

Artists Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell who have been on The Architecture Drawing Prize as judges since its inception in 2017 explain why Pasing’s approach to drawing impressed the jury again:

“‘The Wall’ fills the view with a golden elevation: expansive and richly complex, it appears both vertical and horizontal, before us and below us, a terrain of construction and sedimented accumulation. It is not a border or a barrier, it is a space itself, a place of habitation, a record of social interaction. The wall is like time, it is history in the making.”

In addition, a work by Victoria University of Wellington graduate architect William du Toit, made the shortlist in the Hybrid Category. His work entitled The Stamper Battery, was featured in an essay by Daniel K Brown about the role of abstract architectural drawing earlier this year. Read about it here.

The Hand-Drawn Category shortlist included:

• The Temple of Gaia by Giorgos Christofi
• Final Mexico Drawing by Ben Johnson
• Homage to Corb by Dustin Wheat

 The Hybrid Category shortlist included:

• The Stamper Battery by William du Toit
• Traversing Dreamscapes by Sean Seah

 The Digital Category shortlist included:

• The Minecraft Labyrinth - A Reclamation of Childhood by Eric Pham
• Mnemosyne by Meichen Duan

The shortlisted entries can be viewed on the World Architecture Festival website.  

The Category Winners will be on display at the World Architecture Festival in Lisbon and presented their awards at the Gala Dinner on 2 December, 2022.

Additionally, the shortlisted drawings will be exhibited at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London (08 Feb–07 May 2023) and the Overall Winner for 2022 will be announced at the Museum’s Architecture Drawing Prize exhibition preview. 

The Architecture Drawing Prize is co-curated by Make Architects, Sir John Soane’s Museum and World Architecture Festival (WAF).

For the latest updates follow @architecturedrawingprize on Instagram.