Our 13th annual AZ Awards program packs many surprises: This year, we were able to award more winners than ever – we have 26 AZ Awards winners and 57 Awards of Merit. And we have ties in two categories – A+ Student Award and Buildings Over 1,000 SqM. The range within this duo of tandem winners alone shows the broad scope of innovation that our 1,000-plus entries represent. One of the students, Nicole Cao (University of Waterloo), presented a concept for a collective, sustainable housing project that also builds community in the suburb of Bramalea, Ontario. The other, Dimitrios Mitsimponas (University of Thessaly), demonstrates the potential of a scarred landscape — the Greek island of Giali — to be reimagined as a pumice spa that also reinvigorates the local environment.

The two winners in Buildings Over 1,000 sqm are also extraordinary — and extraordinarily different. The Ace Hotel Toronto was designed to feel of a piece with its urban fabric while also introducing astounding moments such as a cable-suspended lobby among a series of majestic concrete arches.

The Ilulissat Icefjord Museum, near the Arctic Circle, is a singular and solitary building, by contrast. It’s a swooping form that provides various vantage points onto its otherworldly context of icebergs, as well as onto the rapacious effects of intensifying climate change on this incredible landscape.

Throughout the pages of the 2023 AZ Awards issue, you will encounter other marvels that boldly address both problems and possibilities: a joyous furniture collection made with discarded materials, an entire tower upcycled into a bright new development, a reef wall system that reintroduces oysters to the ecosystem.

Magic Realism Made Real

We take in the new Gabriel García Marquez library in Barcelona by SUMA Arquitectura; shaped like a stack of books, the building is an homage to the master of magical realism.

Milan Mania

We present the best from Milan – all that we saw and loved at the Salone del Mobile and the Fuorisalone, from SolidNature’s subterranean ode to onyx to Roche Bobois’s Candy Land confections and the most outstanding trends across furniture and lighting.

Spotlight on Lighting

Need even more lighting inspiration? We have an entire Spotlight section packed with brilliant launches from Euroluce as well as stories of wondrous lighting schemes integrated into fantastic interiors.

The 2023 AZ Awards is presented by Caesarstone, Keilhauer and Landscape Forms and sponsored by Ciot and Colombo Design America. Gala sponsors are George Brown College’s Brookfield Sustainability Institute, Dark Tools and Scavolini.

Media Partners: Archello, ArchDaily, Archilovers, Archinect, Archiproducts, The Architect’s Newspaper, Architonic, Bustler, Design Week Mexico, INDEX Design, Kollectif, v2com newswire and World-Architects.