Winners of the World Architecture Festival 2018 Architecture Drawing Prize

Now in its second year, the World Architecture Festival's Architecture Drawing Prize distinguishes the creative use of digital tools and digitally produced renderings, while also promoting the importance of preserving the art of hand drawing. Design professionals and students representing 31 countries submitted their best work to the Digital Still, Hand-drawing, and Hybrid categories. Category winners and High Commendations were announced.

Out of the 17 shortlisted entrants, the jury awarded Overall Winner to “The Samsara of Building No. 42 on Dirty Street” by Li Han, a founding partner of the aptly named Drawing Architecture Studio in Beijing. Han's entry was also the winner of the Digital category. 

Lukas Göbl of Austrian practice göbl architektur won in the Hybrid category for “City of Beautiful Bodies”, while Carlijn Kingma of Studio Carlijn Kingma won the Hand-drawn Category with “The Babylonian Tower of Modernity”.

Scroll down to check out the winning entries.

Overall + Digital Category Winner: Li Han, “The Samsara of Building No.42 on Dirty Street”, 2017

Summary: “This project comprises a chronological visual narrative of the development of a residential building in Beijing, China between 2008 and 2017. It shows how the building was transformed from regular apartments into an apparently spontaneous urban group with commercial venues in the former apartments; how these buildings were then demolished by the government in order to clean up ‘first-floor-homes-turned-into-businesses’; and how the building was subsequently restored to purely residential use. It uses drawing to examine the relationship between civil society and the state in urban development.”

Jury comment: “This drawing challenges preconceptions of digital presentation. It tells hundreds of stories over nine years in which architecture, cities and people's lives change. It's important for all architects to consider the life of buildings over the course of time. The drawing captures the energy of a project. You can feel the speed of the city and hear the noise. It's a modern day Archigram drawing but also a step into the future, which is why it's an overall winner.” — Narinder Sagoo, senior partner at Foster + Partners

Hybrid Category Winner: Lukas Göbl, “City of Beautiful Bodies”, 2016

Summary: “Lukas Göbl’s drawing is part of an ongoing drawing project dedicated to the idea of utopia and its role in today’s society. Following Paul Klee’s motto, ‘Not a day without a line’, it treats utopia as a process as much as a destination.”

Jury comment: "The power of intuition is here. It's an example of hand drawing not as a final product but as a successful design and thinking tool. It's about drawing as process not outcome.” — Farshid Moussavi

Hand-drawn Category Winner: Carlijn Kingma, “The Babylonian Tower of Modernity”, 2017

Summary: “Carlijn Kingma’s drawing recasts the story of the Tower of Babel in the light of the modern religion of capitalism. It addresses the idea that social media and the new tools of digital communication are leading to an ever more polarized society and public sphere, at odds with the technological dream of progress.

Jury comment: “This is an incredible drawing technically, with skilled projection of detail, shading and depth. The way it takes you through spaces is phenomenal. You can look at it for days.” — Ken Shuttleworth, founder of Make Architects

The winning and shortlisted entries will be exhibited at Sir John Soane's Museum in London from October 17 to November 18, 2018 as well as at the 2018 World Architecture Festival in Amsterdam next month. The prizes will also be presented during WAF.

Check out the Highly Commended entries in the gallery below.

All images courtesy of World Architecture Festival Architecture Drawing Prize 2018.