The Architecture Drawing Prize 2026 has announced 11 recipients, chosen from 168 entries submitted from around the world. Now in its ninth edition, the prize was launched in 2017 to celebrate architectural drawing across many formats and techniques. It is co-curated by Make Architects, Sir John Soane’s Museum and the World Architecture Festival (WAF), with support from Iris Ceramica Group. An overall recipient will be announced at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London in early 2027.
The recipients’ work will go on public view in two places, beginning with Fort Lauderdale. Selected drawings will appear at the World Architecture Festival at the Broward County Convention Center in Florida from November 18 to 20, 2026. The Architecture Drawing Prize exhibition will then run at Sir John Soane’s Museum from January 27 to February 28, 2027. That London show is also where the overall recipient will be revealed.
Post-Tropical Landscapes: Myths, Monsters and Monuments by Annabelle Tan of Studio Mess. Image Courtesy of The Architecture Drawing Prize
- Entries: 168 from around the world
- Recipients: 11, plus a special prize for hand-drawing
- WAF display: Broward County Convention Center, Fort Lauderdale, November 18 to 20, 2026
- Exhibition: Sir John Soane’s Museum, January 27 to February 28, 2027
The competition was open to architects, designers and students, and it accepted drawings of every type. Conceptual, technical and construction drawings sat alongside cutaways, perspective views, speculative scenarios and transgressive formats. A professional jury judged each entry on technical skill, originality of approach and the ability to convey an architectural idea. Because AI tools are growing in influence and drawing itself keeps changing, the awards are judged on an overall basis rather than in category silos.
The special prize for hand-drawing, which recalls the original spirit of the awards, went to Ross Cameron for his pencil drawing of the scaffolding that has surrounded Glasgow School of Art since the fires of 2014 and 2018. The jury praised the work for “capturing the tension between permanence and impermanence in a structure intended to be temporary.” Cameron’s piece is one of several recognized drawings that engage with memory and history, a theme that runs through much of this year’s selection.
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Two other recipients take memory and history in different directions. Ioana Enache’s The People’s Palace is an archive of spoken testimony placed within the foundations of the unfinished Romanian Opera. Bojana Sićović’s Urban Scenography examines social housing in New Belgrade. Javier García Goicoechea’s In the Eye of the Storm turns to psychology instead, using six floor plans to trace the progression of addiction through the spaces of a casino.
Glasgow School of Art 2026 by Ross Cameron. Image Courtesy of The Architecture Drawing Prize
Climate and ecology shape another group of drawings. Annabelle Tan’s Post-Tropical Landscapes shows vine-covered concrete structures for Singapore, while Laurie Chetwood’s Re-enchanted City imagines the resettlement of an abandoned metropolis. Both sit comfortably beside the speculative entries, among them Alexandra Kazandzhyan’s Floating Feast, a drifting ziggurat formed by a single table, and Gary Polk’s Gilgamesh, a kaiju-like assemblage of architectural fragments. Together they show how far drawing can reach into the fantastical.
The remaining recipients lean toward research and practice. Michael Chapman produced a 49-panel map of the fictional Fox River prison, and Ben Johnson combined drawing and paint to explore a gravity-free corridor. Jarrell Goh’s illustrative masterplan for Cambridge Business Park was made for public consultation, which shows drawing serving a working planning process as well as artistic ends. The range of subjects, scales and techniques runs from memory and housing to addiction, myth, fiction and perception.
The People’s Palace by Ioana Enache of rg+p / The Bartlett School of Architecture. Image Courtesy of The Architecture Drawing Prize
The jury that made the selection was led by Paul Finch, WAF program director and chair of the jury. It also included Ken Shuttleworth, founder of Make Architects, and artists Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell. Lily Jencks, executive chair of the Jencks Foundation at The Cosmic House, Federica Minozzi, group CEO of Iris Ceramica Group, and Narinder Singh Sagoo MBE, head of design communications at Foster + Partners, joined them. Erin McKellar, assistant curator of exhibitions at Sir John Soane’s Museum, completed the panel.
The announcement arrives amid a busy run of major architecture awards. Pritzker Prize laureates Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal were named recipients of the 2027 Le Prix Charlotte Perriand, and in October the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) named Nakshabid Architects’ alternative factory model in Bangladesh the RIBA International Prize 2026 recipient. The RIBA Stirling Prize 2026 went to the Lion Green Road housing development in London by Mary Duggan Architects and RUFFARCHITECTS.
Olivia Bennett is a seasoned American news editor at Arch2O, born in the UK and a proud alumna of UCLA, where she studied Architecture and Media Studies. With a strong editorial background and a passion for design storytelling, she excels in translating complex architectural ideas into engaging narratives. Olivia focuses on contemporary trends, sustainability, and emerging talents in the field, offering readers a fresh, global perspective on the built environment.