LOOP Design Awards 2021 celebrates diversity and outstanding design

Celebrating diversity and remarkable global design projects, LOOP is an open platform that sheds light on extraordinary creativity from across the world. The organisation's dedicated awards programme - the LOOP Design Awards, founded in 2020, is currently on a mission to become one of the most prestigious and identifiable institutions within the domains of Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape Design, Product Design and Architecture Photography. Now in its second edition, the recent announcement of the LOOP Design Awards 2021 winners list signalled the end of a journey that had commenced on March 1 with the initial call for entries. This year’s design awards saw the introduction of a host of new honours and features, with over 650 submissions from more than 50 countries, culminating in the selection of 190 winners across the multitude of categories that constitute the overall list of accolades on offer.

As per the organisers, LOOP has been designed as an entirely digital platform to facilitate easy entry submissions by eliminating issues of accessibility - permitting the inclusion of a more diverse range of participants from all over the world. Eligibility criteria for this year’s awards specified that all architecture, interior, and product design entries needed to be projects that had been completed over the past five years while landscape design projects were given a recency limit of the past 10 years. The only exception to this rule lay in the Concept/Unbuilt categories.

Following three rounds of registration and submissions that took place between March and July 2021, the projects were evaluated by an esteemed jury of architects, designers, professors, editors, photographers, and researchers, in a selection process devised to reflect the innate complexity of each of the categories, assessing qualities such as form, function, and impact. Once the entries were finalised, each panel member was allotted a specific number of projects reflecting their areas of expertise. Individual works had to be rated on a scale of 10, through an online procedure that ensured confidentiality internally within the panel, as well as externally from the general public. Votes were then tallied and processed digitally. The jury was tasked with selecting at least one winner and two Honourable Mentions for each category. Furthermore, in the event of a tie, the panel members would have to be summoned to take a final call.

The prestigious jury panel this year included Maurizio Meossi (Associate Architect, Zaha Hadid Architects), Manuel Aires Mateus (Principal, Aires Mateus), Amit Gupta (Founder and Editor-in-Chief of STIR), Stefan Antoni (Principal, SAOTA), Fokke Moerel (Partner, MVRDV), D’Arcy Jones (Principal, D’Arcy Jones Architects), Ema Peter (Principal, Ema Peter Photography),  Julie Payette (Co-Founder and Partner, V2COM), Amanda Ferber (CEO, Architecture Hunter), Simon David (Founder, OSD), Christiane Bausback (CEO, NP Industrial Design), and a host of other reputed professionals involved in allied fields of architecture and design.

Besides the numerous category award winners, LOOP honoured 10 exceptional projects in its 2021 Winners list - lauding the best entries received within each category this year. This year’s winners included Torre AI in Mexico by HW Studio Arquitectos (Architecture Design), Zibi House in Canada by Studio Paolo Ferrari (Interior Design), BLVD International’s Yujidao Park in China (Landscape Design), Boga Collection for Hollis + Morris by REPUBLIC OF II BY IV (Product Design), HGEsch Photography’s Abstract Architecture Photography Portfolio (Architecture Photographer), Nicolas Dahan Architects’ Wooden villa in France (Houses), São Bento Residences in Portugal by Pedra Líquida (Renovations), Nic Brunsdon’s The Tiing Boutique Resort in Indonesia (Hotels), Adela by Faci Leboreiro (Restaurants), and Office Dr. Schär AG in Italy designed by monovolume architecture + design (Offices).

Additionally, the awards programme also felicitated five emerging firms and designers in the New Talent awards category, alongside 10 other projects in the People’s Choice bracket, selected by a public voting process that saw approximately 50,000 votes cast over a one-month period. Among them, HW Studio Arquitectos were once again honoured in the New Talent - Architecture category for Torre AI while Inca Hernandez’s Venecia 20 in Mexico and Catalin Marin’s work capturing the House of Wisdom in Sharjah, UAE, by Foster + Partners were honoured with the New Talent Awards for Interior Design and the People’s Choice Awards for Best Architecture Photography respectively.

Foster + Partners also received the category award for Sustainable and Green Architecture for their work on the Global Home of the PGA TOUR in the United States as part of the category winners brackets. This section of the programme also awarded Snorre Stinessen Architecture for the Aurora Lodge in Norway within the Other Architecture Design category alongside Takaaki Fuji + Yuko Fuji Architecture for Bay Window House in Japan under the Small Architecture bracket, as well as Plano Humano Arquitectos’ Our Lady of Fátima Chapel in Portugal in the Religious & Spiritual division. Moreover, TRAMA Arquitetos was also honoured as a category winner under Residential & Houses for the Cork Tree House project in Portugal.

To build on the success of this year’s event, LOOP also plans to launch an accompanying competition - the LOOP Creative Awards, to celebrate students and professionals involved in the arena of Architectural Visualisation and Rendering. As a meticulously developed and curated platform that seeks to recognise entrants with a diverse, innovative, accessible, transparent and prestigious awards process, the latest edition of LOOP’s flagship awards programme is overflowing with an abundance of talent, in a true reflection of the organisation’s goal to impart greater visibility and diversity to global architecture and design.

Click here to view the full list of winners across all categories.