A collaboration between Samuel Wen, a student architect at Cox Architecture, and Michael Ren, a designer/educator, has been named the Overall Winner of the 2022 Architecture Drawing Prize.

An annual program organised by the World Architecture Festival with co-curators Make Architects and Sir John Soane’s Museum, The Architecture Drawing Prize is awarded across three categories – hand-drawn, hybrid and digital, with the overall winner selected from the three category winners.

2022 Architecture Drawing Prize - Overall Winner

This year’s winner is a hybrid drawing by Wen and Ren, titled ‘Fitzroy Food Institute’, created by combining different rendering techniques that played to their respective strengths. According to the winners, their joint entry portrays a dumpling institute that deviates from a traditional orientalist attitude towards Chinese culture, while also examining ideas of globalisation and automation.

Wen, who is a Bachelor of Design and Master of Architecture graduate from the University of Melbourne, said, “Being able to convey such ideas and a captivating narrative through drawing had been the aim from the beginning. This project meant a lot to us because the broader intention of the drawing was to use architecture to challenge traditional oriental stereotypes about our Chinese heritage.”

Ren, who is pursuing the Master of Architecture program at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, added, “Collaboration under a remote academic setting proved to be a challenge. However, we were able to work through this project by identifying individual strengths and weaknesses. For example, Samuel has always been passionate about hand-drawn illustrations whereas I have an aptitude for digital renderings. Incorporating both methods of representation acknowledges a post-digital era in architectural visualisation.”

Wen and Ren’s ‘Fitzroy Food Institute’ was picked for the Hybrid category prize as an example of a highly skilled, rich composite drawing using different media and consisting of a plan, two sections, two elevations, four views, six diagrams, one detail and two call-outs, all imaginatively arranged in a top-down view of a typically Chinese roundtable dining experience.

“Fitzroy Food Institute stands out for its well-considered and subtle use of colour. It’s a very accessible drawing looking over a shared meal at a table; yet it is full of architectural interest featuring not only a plan, but sections and elevations as well as detail. A conceptually original and genuinely delightful entry,” Ken Shuttleworth, founder of Make Architects and Prize judge, commented.

The Architecture Drawing Prize Exhibition

The Architecture Drawing Prize Exhibition hosted by Sir John Soane’s Museum opens to the public on 8 February and continues until 7 May 2023. The dedicated exhibition features the winning and commended drawings from the 2022 entries, which demonstrate an increased interest in social and environmental topics as well as a broad range of approaches to drawing. The curatorial team from the Museum together with Make Architects have also created a virtual retrospective of The Architecture Drawing Prize that will be screened at the Museum’s Foyle Space.

Branko Miletic

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