描述
Lubaina Himid | Barbara Buser | Sergison Bates | Henley Halebrown | Carmody Groarke | GRAS | Overtreders W | PK Inception | Studio Charlotte Harris | Comunal | Stalled!
Last October, the UK’s Fawcett Society published a report on women’s experiences in the architectural profession. It followed a report from 2003 and made for depressing reading. ‘Many of the same issues remain,’ its authors noted. ‘Pay inequality, sexual harassment and misogyny are still commonplace.’ As reports pile up, each announcing that little has changed, the W Awards – which recognise the work of women and non-binary people and in the fields of gender and architecture – feel more pertinent, not less.
These pages celebrate the work of exceptional thinkers and practitioners. Swiss architect Barbara Buser, winner of the Jane Drew Prize, has been quietly pursuing principles of reuse for decades, while the work of artist Lubaina Himid, awarded the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize, urges architects to ask who has a seat at the table.
This year’s shortlist for the MJ Long Prize, for architects working in UK-based practices, includes restoration and reuse projects in Ghent, Manchester and East Lothian, as well as an office that invents a new classical order in London. The issue then travels to the Netherlands, India, the UK and Mexico to visit the practice founders under 45 recognised in the Moira Gemmill Prize shortlist.
As discrimation against trans people resurges, the project awarded the research prize reimagines public toilets as safe and inclusive spaces for all – essential infrastructure for social equality.
1529: W Awards
cover (above) Lubaina Himid
The table is a recurring motif in the work of this year’s Ada Louise Huxtable Prize winner Lubaina Himid – giving a seat at the proverbial table to those who traditionally have not. In The Operating Table from 2019 (cover), the masterplan for a city appears to be authored, not by white male colonialists, but three Black women. Credit: © Lubaina Himid / courtesy the artist, Hollybush Gardens, London and Greene Naftali, New York
folio (lead image) Birgit Jürgenssen
‘So often the woman is an art object,’ Birgit Jürgenssen wrote in 1974. ‘Rarely and reluctantly is she able to speak or show her work.’ This untitled artwork by Jürgenssen was drawn in 1983. Credit: © Birgit Jürgenssen, Estate Birgit Jürgenssen / Bildrecht Vienna, 2026; Courtesy Galerie Hubert Winter / DACS, 2026
ada louise huxtable prize for contribution to architecture
reputations
Lubaina Himid
Huda Tayob
jane drew prize for architecture
reputations
Barbara Buser
Vera Sacchetti
mj long prize for excellence in practice
building
Ghent barracks
Evelyne Vanhoutte, Sergison Bates
Cristophe Van Gerrewey
building
Barge Crescent
Jennifer Pirie, Henley Halebrown
Laxmi Andrews
building
Power Hall
Rowan Seaford, Carmody Groarke
Joe Lloyd
building
Preston Tower
Natasha Huq, GRAS
Ruth Lang
moira gemmill prize for emerging architecture
portfolio
Hester Van Dijk, Overtreders W
Francesco Degl’Innocenti
portfolio
Pooja Khairnar, PK Inception
A Srivathsan
portfolio
Charlotte Harris, Studio Charlotte Harris
Julia Cabanas
portfolio
Mariana Ordóñez Grajales and Jesica Amescua Carrera, Comunal
Selene Patlan
prize for research in gender and architecture
essay
Stalled!
Pol Esteve Castelló
