Lindy Johnson is passionate about increasing the value of design businesses and has won many industry and government awards for her innovative and ground-breaking work. She has also been on several awards program panels.
Here, Lindy draws on her 30 years’ experience to share her top three tips for writing architecture award entries.
1. Describe the project clearly and succinctly
Write your responses in short, sharp sentences. It’s best to include only one idea per sentence. Describe what your brief was and how you delivered on the brief through your design. Detail what your team delivered – did you design the interiors as well as the architecture? Your project will not be visited, so try to describe the experience, or feeling you get from using the space.
Remember – you know your project well, but the reader doesn’t. Make sure to include all the important information about your work.
2. Outline the challenges
Every project has its challenges. These may include budget, time constraints, an underdeveloped brief, a difficult site and so on. Detail the challenges on your project and provide tangible examples of how you overcame those challenges to deliver a great result.
3. Share any innovations and benefits
It’s important to showcase the innovations and benefits of your project. This gives assessors a clear indication of why your project and design is successful.
An innovation can be something that’s new or improved. Perhaps you were able to streamline a traditional process that was previously time consuming, or maybe you incorporated technology into your design in a new way.
Highlight the benefits of your work – these are present on every project. Benefits can be economic, environmental or social. Where possible, use data to support your entry. If there’s no data available, anecdotes from your clients work well to prove your project’s merits.