| Photo by Alessandro Cancian |
| Guests take their seats at Toronto's Thompson Hotel. Photo by Ryan Emberley |
| Diana Swain, CBC News correspondent and MC for the evening. Photo by Alessandro Cancian |
| Azure's editor Nelda Rodger and MC Diana Swain. Photo by Ryan Emberley |
| Juror Brigitte Shim with BNKR Arquitectura. Photo by Ryan Emberley |
| Brigitte Shim with RUFproject's Sean Pearson. Photo by Ryan Emberley |
| Lyndon Madden of GE Monogram and Rene Gonzalez (left). Photo by Ryan Emberley |
| Steve Keilhauer presents the concepts award to John Patkau. Photo by Ryan Emberley |
| George Brown College's Helen Vukovich presents the A+ Award to Newsha Ghaeli. Photo by Ryan Emberley |
| Members of BNKR Arquitectura and Michel Rojkind (middle). Photo by Ryan Emberley |
| Photo by Alessandro Cancian |
Last night at Toronto’s Thompson Hotel, 250 guests cheered for the winners, People’s Choice and finalists of the AZ AWARDS, our international awards competition.
From as far away as India, Mexico and the Netherlands, design and architecture professionals and aficionados convened at the Thompson Hotel to learn who would take home an AZ trophy. MC and CBC News anchor Diana Swain kicked off the night by thanking all who entered, as well as the competition’s sponsors – Audi, Keilhauer, GE Monogram, George Brown College, AdBeast and v2comm. (See more pictures from the evening at flickr.com/azure_magazine.)
Sixty finalists were selected from over 600 submissions by a star-studded jury: architects Imola Bérczi of UNStudio and Brigitte Shim of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, industrial designer Jeffrey Bernett of Consultants for Design Strategy, interior designer Elaine Cecconi of Cecconi Simone, landscape architect Jennifer Guthrie of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, and Mike Kielhauer of office systems manufacturer Keilhauer. People’s Choice awards were also designated, following weeks of online voting earlier this year.
Illustrating the boundary-crossing scope found in the pages of Azure, the submissions included beautifully functional and space-saving designs such as Valcucine’s New Logica kitchen system and Duravit’s collapsible OpenSpace shower stall and luxurious yet sensible spaces including Koji Tsutsui Architect’s clustered residential rooms and BNKR Arquitectura‘s stark funeral chapel.
In concepts, Mark Horton Architecture’s sports training facility and a student-designed floating power plant took home trophies. Patkau Architects nabbed two honours for their lean, minimal skating shelters in Winnipeg and for the subterranean cottages proposed for the site of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.
This year’s trophies were water-jet cut by Dave Milum of Accents of Distinction from artisanal glass manufactured in the studio of Jeff Goodman, who died earlier this year. In her opening remarks, Azure editor in chief Nelda Rodger remarked that these trophies stand as a salute to the winners and to Goodman’s memory.
Below, the Winners and People’s Choices for the 2012 AZ Awards.
Best Furniture Design
Winner: Waver Chair by Konstantin Grcic for Vitra
People’s Choice: Piano Clothing Rack by Patrick Seha for Feld
Best Furniture Systems Design
Winner & People’s Choice: New Logica by Gabriele Centazzo for Valcucine
Best Lighting Design
Winner: 28d by Omer Arbel for Bocci
People’s Choice: Line by Frederic Galliot and Dirk Zylstra for Eureka Lighting
Best Interior Product Design
Winner & People’s Choice: OpenSpace by EOOS for Duravit
Best Residential Architecture
Winner: InBetween House by Koji Tsutsui Architect & Associates
People’s Choice: Two Hulls House by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects
Best Commercial and Institutional Architecture over 1,000 square metres
Winner: Nike Football Training Centre, Soweto by RUFproject
People’s Choice: TIFF Bell Lightbox by KPMB Architects
Best Commercial and Institutional Architecture under 1000 square metres
Winner: Sunset Chapel by BNKR Arquitectura
People’s Choice: Tori Tori Restaurant by Rojkind Arquitectos + Esrawe Studio
Best Landscape Architecture
People’s Choice: Sugar Beach by Claude Cormier + Associés
Best Temporary Architecture
Winner: Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts by Thinc Design
People’s Choice: Winnipeg Skating Shelters by Patkau Architects
Best Residential Interior
Winner & People’s Choice: V4 House by Studio MK27
Best Commercial Interior
Winner: Alchemist boutique by Rene Gonzalez Architect
People’s Choice: LYCS Architecture Office by LYCS Architecture
Best Unbuilt Competition Scheme
Winner: Cottages at Fallingwater by Patkau Architects
People’s Choice: Two Office Towers by REX + JET + AIM
Best Unrealized Concept
Winner: Multi-Sport Training Facility by Mark Horton Architecture
People’s Choice: New Mecca Masterplan by Partisans
A+ Award for Best Student Project
Winner & People’s Choice: Polytropism – Tower Concept by Caileigh MacKellar and Newsha Ghaeli (McGill University)
For images of all 60 finalists, visit v2com.biz.
All 60 winners and finalists are profiled in the Annual Awards Issue, on newsstands June 18 in Canada, July 2 in the U.S. and July 12 internationally.
