Winners of the 2020 W Awards provide a continued voice for women in architecture

The Architecture Review and The Architect's Journal announce this year's winners for the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture and the winner for the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice. The W Awards, formerly known as the Women in Architecture Awards, celebrate the commitment, talent, leadership, and outstanding work of women in architecture. 

2012 was the first year the awards started, and since then, this form of recognition celebrates the continued work and efforts made by women in the field. The Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture has been awarded to Genoa-based architect Francesca Torzo. Niamey-based architect Mariam Kamara was also Highly Commended for the prize. 

Tracy Meller of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was awarded the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice. 

In addition, we highlight the recent awarding of Pakistan's first female architect Yasmeen Lari for the Jane Drew Prize for Architecture and architectural academic Beatriz Colomina for the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture.

Individually each architect has committed their time and effort to push architectural pedagogy and practice. Read more about the winners and comments from the award's coordinators below.

The Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture
Winner: Francesca Torzo (Francesca Torzo Architetto)
Judges Comments: "Each of Torzo’s projects is a complete reinvention of what architecture can be, with maze-like plans or strange constructional logics. Z33 is both beautiful and poetic, Torzo setting a scene for characters to animate, like a theatre director. She occupies the same space as Olgiati or Zumthor, but she goes even beyond her mentors – achieving a level of completeness in an industry that doesn’t often allow for it." 

Highly Commended: Mariam Kamara (Atelier Masōmī)
Judges Comments: "Kamara is creating space for vulnerable communities; architecture that really makes an impact, that changes social dynamics and relationships. Using vernacular construction techniques in a context with very few architects, she challenges the idea that you can only build in concrete, changing a relationship with landscape and ecology that presents a different kind of beauty" 

MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice
Winner: Tracy Meller (Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners) 
Judges Comments: "Meller is gutsy and humane at the same time. She’s a real leader, working collaboratively while still pulling the whole thing together. It’s a very difficult thing to do in a corporate culture, going against a general tendency of having a solo leading voice." 

Jane Drew Prize for Architecture 
Winner: Yasmeen Lari (Lari Associates)
Manon Mollard, editor of The Architectural Review: "From landmark buildings in Karachi to crisis shelters and community centers made of earth and bamboo, Yasmeen Lari’s work has shown that grand schemes are not the only way to make an impact – that architecture that uplifts, provides dignity to the marginalized, can make real and meaningful change." 

Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture
Winner: Beatriz Colomina
Manon Mollard, editor of The Architectural Review: "Beatriz Colomina’s rich and rigorous career has shaped the way we think about architecture, right back to Sexuality & Space – still a much-needed text in architectural education. Her writing, her curation and her teaching have been part of the backbone of architectural theory for many years, and will continue to inspire in years to come." 

To learn more about the W Awards click here.