The Best of Design Awards seeks to elevate the most stellar projects, be it facades, landscape, interiors, museums, exhibition design, libraries, and more. For the 12th annual competition, AN has opened entries to firms and projects around the world. As such, the jury this year has grown to our biggest panel yet.
In addition to the previously announced jurors—Omar Gandhi, Li Hu, David M. Powell, Mónica Rivera, and our executive editor Jack Murphy—the 2024 Best of Design jury welcomes Joshua Aidlin, Katherine Darnstadt, Walter Hood, Alexandra Lange, and our managing editor Emily Conklin. The panel will review submissions based on several criteria: strength of the presentation, evidence of innovation, creative use of new technology, sustainability, and, of course, good design. They will also crown the penultimate award: Project of the Year, which all entries will automatically be considered for when applying.
Submissions close September 13 at midnight E.T. To best prepare applications, read on to learn more the the jurors part of the Best of Design panel and what they may be looking for.
Joshua Aidlin | Founding Principal | Aidlin Darling Design
Joshua Aidlin leads a multidisciplinary studio—producing architecture, interiors, furniture, and sculptures—with a conviction that art and design are integral to vibrant public life. Joshua advances an architecture demonstrating environmental, cultural, psychological, and multisensorial sensitivity. A tireless public advocate for design, Joshua has served on the board of the SFMOMA Architecture & Design Forum; the AIASF Public Policy and Advocacy Committee; and the Fundraising Committee for Youth Art Exchange. Founded in 1997, his eponymic studio Aidlin Darling Design has garnered over 300 awards, including the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for the firm’s complete body of work.
Katherine Darnstadt | Founding Principal | Latent
Katherine Darnstadt is the founder of Latent, an architecture and urbanism practice exploring the influence of design as small or as large as the context allows in the search of social and spatial justice. Since founding Latent in 2010, Katherine and her firm have pursued projects at the bench, building, and block scale across Chicago and the Midwest. It has prototyped new urban design systems to advance urban food access with Forty Acres Fresh Market, supported over 200 small businesses through Boombox micro retail popup program, designed new community centers with Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago, and created community design frameworks through cofounding the nonprofit Design Trust Chicago.
Walter Hood | Founder and Creative Director | Hood Design Studio
Walter J. Hood, a multidisciplinary designer from Charlotte, North Carolina, is globally recognized for his contributions in art, landscape architecture, urbanism, and research. Founding Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California in 1992, he now leads as its creative director. His passion for landscape and urbanism emerges from its broad, democratic scope, allowing experiences beyond architectural constraints. Infusing African American cultural arts into his philosophy, he established a unique voice, reshaping spaces to reflect contemporary needs without erasing their history. A professor at UC Berkeley and former Harvard educator, Walter penned Black Landscapes Matter and has received accolades like the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2021 Architectural League’s President’s Medal award, and 2023 WSJ Magazine Innovator in Design award.
Alexandra Lange | Design Critic
Alexandra Lange is a design critic. Her essays, reviews, and profiles have appeared in numerous design publications including Architect, Harvard Design Magazine, and Metropolis, as well as in The Atlantic, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. She is a columnist for Bloomberg CityLab, and has been a featured writer at Design Observer, an opinion columnist at Dezeen, and the architecture critic for Curbed. Her latest book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall, was published by Bloomsbury USA in June 2022.
Emily Conklin | Managing Editor | The Architect’s Newspaper
Emily Conklin (she/her) is a writer, architecture historian, and the managing editor of The Architect’s Newspaper. She holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from Columbia GSAPP, and her current areas of research include office to residential conversions and designs for coliving.
Best of Design submissions are open now until September 13, midnight E.T.
