2025 AAA Design Awards
Photos by Logan Jeffries of Incredible Images
Post by Daniel Metcalf - October 2025
The AAA awards made their comeback in October 2025. Now renamed the AAA Design Awards, the awards were back with reinterpreted categories and criteria.
As a registered society, we aim to platform projects that contribute to the design field or further discourse within the wider architectural realm. Ideal projects may interrogate, communicate or research a topic related to the built environment to investigate social issues, urbanism, architectural history, construction, or the effects of design on its users.
The rename of these awards was to acknowledge the historical role of cross-disciplinary practice in design and entries were not limited to those within the field of architecture. We welcomed students and practitioners from architecture, engineering, urban design, planning, graphic design, industrial design etc as well as those for whom design is a passion or hobby.
We had many submissions this time around, and the finalists’ projects were displayed on the day thanks to Maxine and the team at The Print Company.
Our 4 categories were the Craft Object (celebrating the built form), Peripheral Media (showcasing the representation of design), Unbuilt Design (a reference to the history of these awards - seeking unbuilt projects from students’ portfolios and designers’ archives), and Emerging Practice (projects from those setting up within the last 10 years).
In another nod to the history of these awards, the Visionary Award, went to the judges’ favourite project.
These awards would not have been possible without the support from our returning sponsor, Blum, and Auckland Council, who allowed us to host these awards at Te Rimutahi in Ponsonby. The Alistair Munro Design Company created the stunning trophies for our deserving winners, MetCAD designed the certificates, posters and other awards graphics, and both companies aided in logistics (with assistance from Angus Muir Design) and set-up for the awards.
A massive thank you to everyone who helped out on the night and a special thank you to our amazing judges, Janae Van Panahon, Rahman Bashir and Lise Jansen-Luke, who, along with Tania Bailey from Blum and our co-chair Alistair Munro, all presented awards to our worthy winners.
Speaking of whom, lets get into the categories and winners…
The Craft Object Award celebrated the built form. It allowed for a range of objects from furniture, sculptures, cutlery, and much more, as well as larger built forms that did not require resource/building consents such as pergolas and follies. The collective of Vincent Heijnen, Renee Brants, Lena Anna Arida de Rouw, Janek Thomas Bosman, Manon Liza L De Kooning, Freek Eigenraam, Frans Ramses Wassen, Emile Marc C Waterkeyn, Merlijn Felix Lewerissa, Noor Zeeman, Jaron Jonathan Smit, Lisanne Fung and Sijmen An de Vries were the winners with their project Materials Matter.
The Peripheral Media Award recognised design within the 2D and virtual realms. It did not require a built form and was more about the representation of design. It was also open to written, performative, or moving image work. The Garden of Broken Shadows by Ali Al Omari not only won this award, but was the judges’ Visionary Award winner.
The Unbuilt Design award sought unbuilt projects hidden within the archives of students, designers and practices. These were projects which would have been impactful or innovative, but did not continue due to fiscal, social, regulatory or other external constraints. These projects ideally ignited conversations within the community, and they could have a ‘real’ site or client, or be completely speculative. Alexander Wong and Antony Lu won this award with their project Epiphany Rise.
The Emerging Practice award sought to recognise emerging practices and practitioners, those who have set up within the last 10 years. We welcomed innovative projects that pushed boundaries and those with exceptional attention to detail. Submissions could have included images/drawings from a range of projects, or focus on one in particular.Summerhill Community Base by Leith Macfarlane
All of the winners, best students & commended projects can be viewed here and all of the finalists and other awards info available here.
On a personal note, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who attended, submitted, volunteered and judged these awards, with a shoutout to our principal sponsor Blum, and supporting sponsors MetCAD, and The Alistair Munro Design Company.
These awards are always a joy for me - I love to see the range of projects that get submitted and to then celebrate the designers behind them.
Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou,
Daniel Metcalf
AAA Co-Chair