The Awards for Emerging Excellence are a suite of prizes that recognizes exceptional talent exhibited by young professionals in architecture, landscape, and craftsmanship. The Awards seek to highlight emerging talent that engages with classical design, demonstrating a thoughtful use of precedents from the past in projects that are forward-looking, creative, and holistically demonstrate their talents.
The relevance and importance of these skills grows each year, as the rise of homogeneous standardization threatens our individual cultures, vernacular design traditions, and historic crafts and trades. Additionally, classical design offers singularly impactful solutions to the most pressing issues facing our built environment at this current moment, from sustainability to preservation, from housing equity to community walkability. The Awards for Emerging Excellence aim to shine a light on exceptional talent and reward young people excelling in their chosen fields.
Architects, garden and landscape design professionals, interior architects, urban planners, building craftspeople, artisans, and interested people from all over the world can participate in this award. All entrants must have been 35 years old or younger by January 1st of the prize year.
Launched in 2017, The Awards began as a collaboration between the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA), The King’s Foundation (KF), and the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU). It has grown to include multiple prize categories and partners, including the Bunny Mellon Prize in Garden Design, The Maker’s Prize for craftsmanship, and The Architect’s Prize given with INTBAU and KF.
Categories
The Architect’s Prize For Excellence in Architecture, Given with the King’s Foundation and INTBAU, is awarded to an emerging architect whose work exhibits a holistic understanding of the principles of classical design, and whose projects show a demonstrable excellence in their design. Awardees’ portfolios will have a clear, individual vision of the role classical design can play in the creation or preservation of our current built environment.
The Bunny Mellon Prize For Excellence in Garden Design is awarded to an emerging designer whose work furthers the ICAA’s mission that design and craftsmanship are vital to lasting and meaningful places. Further, the prize honors emerging professionals that demonstrate skilled knowledge of horticulture in a design that holistically considers the symbiosis between outdoor environments and physical structures and is in the spirit of Bunny Mellon’s “ceaseless interest, passion, and pleasure” in gardens, horticulture, and design.
The Maker’s Prize for Excellence in Craftsmanship is awarded to the emerging craftsperson, artist, or tradesperson whose work demonstrates a wealth of knowledge and excellence in a traditional building art, such as ornamental plaster, decorative painting and finishing, furniture design, masonry, blacksmithing, or any other allied art. Awardees work will demonstrate a care and thoughtfulness about the intersection between the built environment and their work, and their work will demonstrate a thorough understanding of the precedent of their medium and a creative approach to its current day applications.
Deadline & Submissions
Submissions for the 2024 Awards for Emerging Excellence are now being accepted. The deadline for submissions is October 1st, 2024.
Previous Years’ Winners
Click here for full information and to submit.
Imagery and text provided by the ICAA.
About the ICAA
The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s (ICAA) mission is to advance the appreciation and practice of the principles of traditional architecture and its allied arts by engaging educators, professionals, students, and enthusiasts. The ICAA is headquartered in New York City with regional Chapters across the United States. It offers a wide array of programs that are designed to promote the appreciation and practice of classical and traditional design, including classes, travel, lectures, and conferences. It publishes an academic journal called the Classicist as well as the acclaimed book series called the Classical America Series in Art and Architecture. The ICAA’s Arthur Ross Award annually recognizes and celebrates excellence in the classical tradition internationally. The ICAA was honored to bestow an Arthur Ross Award on HRH The Prince of Wales in the Patronage category in 1990.
About KF
The King’s Foundation (formerly known as The Prince’s Foundation) was created in 2018, as a result of the consolidation of four existing charities, The King’s Foundation for Building Community, The King’s Regeneration Trust, The Great Steward of Scotland’s Dumfries House Trust, and The King’s School of Traditional Arts.
The King’s Foundation by focusing on three core tiers – Education, Projects, and Attractions – delivers work to improve the built environment, save heritage, and promote culture and education. Through education The King’s Foundation aims to create sustainably planned, built, and maintained communities, championing and celebrating the most important part of any community: its people. The charity continues to train a generation of architects, masterplanners, and placemakers, in order to ensure the continuation of the kind of timeless skills which have been developed over generations.
About INTBAU
INTBAU was established in 2001, and has since gained 40 chapters and 9,000 members in over 100 countries worldwide. We work under the patronage of our founder, His Majesty King Charles III. INTBAU’s mission is to support traditional building, the maintenance of local character, and the creation of better places to live. We do this through workshops, summer schools, study tours, conferences, awards, and competitions. Our three objectives are to research, educate, and engage as widely as possible on the value and relevance of traditional architecture and urban design. INTBAU is a unique, established resource for global knowledge of traditional architecture and urban design. Our active network consists of individuals and institutions who design, make, maintain, study, or enjoy traditional buildings and places.