A' Design Award: 1,664 Winners for 2025-26, 2026-27 Entries Now Open
The A' Design Award & Competition announced 1,664 winners from 115 countries for its 2025-2026 cycle. Entries are now open for the 2026-2027 edition across 196 design categories, including architecture, interiors, and landscape design.
A' Design Award Announces Winners and Opens Next Cycle
The A' Design Award & Competition, now in its nineteenth year, announced 1,664 winners for its 2025-2026 edition on April 15, 2026. These winners represent 115 countries and span 162 design disciplines. The competition has processed 95,145 submissions from 231,218 registered users across 180 nationalities over its history, culminating in 23,537 laureates.
Entries for the 2026-2027 cycle are open for designers, architects, studios, companies, and brands worldwide. The competition covers 196 categories, ranging from architecture, building, and interior space design to landscape, urban planning, product, furniture, lighting, packaging, and interaction design.
Work submitted must have been completed within the past ten years to ensure relevance while allowing for longer project development cycles.
Rigorous Judging Process and Broad Scope
The A' Design Award employs a four-mechanism judging process to ensure assessment of intrinsic design quality. For the 2026-2027 cycle, the International Design Academy comprises 312 members from professional practice, academia, the design press, and industry.
Notable jurors include Alessandro Deserti, Professor of Design at Politecnico di Milano, and Wenkai Xue, Dean of Industrial Design College at LuXun Academy of Fine Arts. Submissions are evaluated blind, with entrant identities hidden from scorers. Jurors vote independently, preventing influence from peer scores.
Scores then undergo z-score calibration to normalize variations in marking styles. Each entry is judged against discipline-specific criteria, which are reviewed and updated annually. This system aims to reward design merit over reputation.
Comprehensive Recognition for Laureates
Winners of the A' Design Award receive a comprehensive package of recognition benefits, documented to include over 215 separate items. Laureates are awarded a 3D-printed metal trophy, a framed metal certificate, and inclusion in both printed and digital yearbooks. They also gain a perpetual worldwide license to use the winner logo.
Beyond physical awards, the program emphasizes publicity. Benefits include professional press release preparation and distribution via DesignPRWire, guaranteed publication across the IDNN and DXGN networks to more than 100 magazines, and translation of winning work into 108 languages.
Winners also secure exhibition opportunities in Italy, with an eight-year window for further exhibition prospects, along with gala photography, designer interviews, and listing in the World Design Rankings. Award levels include Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron.
Implications for Asian Design and Specification
The A' Design Award provides a platform for Asian architectural and interior design studios to gain international recognition and visibility. The competition's global reach and extensive publicity network can amplify the profiles of Asian firms, such as Unsangdong Architects and POSCO A&C, who received a Platinum award for the Park1538 Gwangyang Cultural Facility in South Korea.
For procurement directors and specifiers in Asia, this award highlights projects and designers demonstrating strong design quality, offering a reference for selecting partners or understanding material applications in award-winning contexts.
Firms considering entering the 2026-2027 edition should note the early submission deadline of June 30, the standard deadline of September 30, and the late deadline of February 28. Results for this cycle will be announced on April 15, 2027.
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