Cameron Sinclair launches new "DEAD PRIZE"

The Dead Prize may be the first ever anti-prize in architecture. Launched by Cameron Sinclair, the Executive Director of the Jolie-Pitt Foundation and co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, Dead Prize opened its nominations today for architecture that has caused remarkable environmental harm. The goal is to create an anti-standard, by which architects can understand what makes a design harmful, how to not repeat that harm, and hopefully, how to form solutions to the winning Dead Prize design. To curate a set of "worst practices" in architecture.

The Prize's website makes clear that this is a satirical mix of serious and tongue-in-cheek commentary on the architecture profession:

"In the past decade we have seen an explosion of honors and awards for the most innovative and forward thinking solutions. Yet no one recognizes the projects that have caused harm to the environment - designs that are helping shorten our existence on this planet. This is why we created the DEAD prize. Let's recognize the bad, honor the failures and hopefully do something to rectify these designs against humanity."

Once a winner is chosen, sometime in early 2015, the Dead Prize committee will reach out to the designer for their side of the story, to gain the widest angle on why things went wrong.

If the Prize acquires sufficient funding, a complementary competition will be launched to design a solution to a Dead Prize winner. Nominations can be submitted to @deadprize until November 1, 2014 (All Soul's Day).