Architect's Journal: The Latest Architecture and News

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The AJ Architecture Awards highlight the very best projects across a range of key categories – from community schemes and cultural projects to masterplans and workplace designs. All architects – regardless of size or scale of practice – are invited to enter their completed UK projects built between January 2018 and July 2019.

The expert judging panels will visit all finalists to meet the architecture teams and capture a true understanding of the challenges involved in bringing each building to life. In addition to stand-out design, our judges will consider each project in detail, examining how it has met or exceeded the brief, how it has promoted client or community engagement, and how it has excelled in the use of space or sense of place.

Architect Liz Diller and architectural photographer Hélène Binet have been awarded the 2019 Jane Drew and Ada Louise Huxtable Prizes, respectively, for their exceptional contributions to the field of architecture. The prizes are part of the eighth edition of the Women in Architecture Awards founded jointly by The Architect's Journal and The Architectural Review.

The Architects' Journal’s 2018 student survey has revealed troublesome, though perhaps not surprising, trends within the profession. The results of the survey, drawn from nearly 500 students in the UK, suggest that the economically fortunate are more likely to succeed within a culture that promotes unsociable and unhealthy working hours.

The numbers paint a bleak picture of the architecture student lifestyle in the UK, where, including tuition fees, students are now forking out an average of £24,000 per year. 44% of respondents identified this as the largest problem for them and their peers.

So as the traditional route into the profession becomes “increasingly out of reach for many,” is it time for schools and offices to reevaluate their methods in order to maintain a diverse, accessible architecture?

Around 1 in 7 women in UK architecture practices has experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in the past year alone, according to the results of the annual Women in Architecture survey conducted by The Architects' Journal. The poll of nearly 1,500 architects also found that more than half of women have experienced some form of discrimination ranging from bullying to workplace rules that leave them disadvantaged in the same period. The AJ's survey, which in previous years has largely focused on issues such as pay disparity between men and women, focuses this year more broadly on gender discrimination and sexual harassment—a response to the global shift in awareness organized around movements such as #MeToo and #TimesUp.

British architect Amanda Levete has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 Jane Drew Prize, recognizing “an architectural designer who, through their work and commitment to design excellence, has raised the profile of women in architecture.”

Founder of London-based practice AL_A, Levete rose to promise as one half of Stirling Prize-winning practice Future Systems, which she ran with then-husband Jan Kaplický. Together, they completed paradigm-shifting and critically acclaimed works such as the Birmingham Selfridges and the Lord’s Media Centre, winner of the 1999 RIBA Stirling Prize.

Levete left Future Systems to form AL_A in 2009, where she found continued success designing cultural venues with bold materiality. Some of the firm’s best known works include the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon, the Central Embassy Shopping Center in Bangkok, the 2015 MPavilion in Melbourne, and the recently-opened addition to the V&A museum in London.

As the winner of the 2016 RIBA Stirling Prize is set to be announced later today, Architects’ Journal has released a documentary looking at the award’s 21-year history and its impact on the buildings and architects that have been named to the prestigious list.

The video, commissioned by AJ’s Laura Mark and filmed by Jim Stephenson, features exclusive interviews with Richard Rogers and Sheila O’Donnell & John Tuomey, and profiles past winners and each of the 6 buildings shortlisted for this year’s prize. The film also reveals AJ’s pick for this year’s winner.

Watch the full video above or check out AJ’s videos on each of the finalists, below.

Are the rigors and tribulations of architecture school causing serious impacts on students' mental health? A new student survey conducted by Architect’s Journal has found that more than a quarter of architecture students in the UK are currently seeking or have sought medical help for mental health issues related to architecture school, and another 25% anticipate seeking help in the future.

The results have prompted Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor at the University of Buckingham and a mental-health campaigner, to describe the situation as “a near epidemic of mental-health problems.”