8 ways to elevate your architecture awards entries in 2023

Awards represent a great opportunity to showcase all the ways you add value and transform places and buildings for the people who use them. To get the most out of your awards entries in 2023 – and to align them with your business development and marketing goals – it pays to think strategically about which projects to enter, and which programs will serve your needs best.

Start by thinking about your potential entries with your ideal future clients in mind, and reverse-engineer your text to speak directly to them. Use your entries to explain how you help clients to achieve effective solutions with a side-serving of unexpected delight.

One option is to keep the focus on the positive aspects of your design solutions, including:

• Improving spatial efficiencies and enhance flow;

• Increasing your clients’ enjoyment and functional performance in their buildings and spaces; 

• Adding amenity and enhancing your clients’ lifestyle or teaching / learning / healthcare / working environment; and

• Capitalising on the site and existing built assets.

Or you can frame your entries around the ways you overcame problems, issues and constraints, by:

• Solving problems, such as lack of space for a growing family;

• Adding flexibility and adaptability, to cater for future needs;

• Increasing energy efficiency to reduce operational costs;

• Providing better connections to the garden and outdoors; and

• Making improvements that solved problems stemming from health, education or commercial issues, for non-residential clients.

I’ve put together a list of 8 ways you can really elevate your awards entries and make them work harder for your practice in 2023.

Pick one or two of these factors and apply them to your entries - with an eye on your future project and client pipeline - and these ideas might even help you generate a waitlist.

1. Showcase your best projects to attract more of the same

Philip Stejskal Architect’s Higham Road House won the WA Chapter’s Peter Overton Award for Residential Architecture - Houses (Alterations and Additions).
Photography by Bo Wong.

Use awards entries - and their resulting media coverage - to conjure up new projects that challenge, stimulate, delight and sustain you and your practice.

Highlight your past successes and clever design solutions to attract the sort of future clients who will enable your creative genius to flourish and your problem-solving abilities to enjoy an extreme workout.

2. Increase the ROI from your awards entries 

Claremont Haus by Leanhaus was shortlisted in the HOUSES Awards and Sustainability Awards in 2022, and features in articles in The West Australian and Domain.
Photography by Jody D’Arcy.

Awards are an expensive marketing activity; they may even be the most expensive project on your annual marketing plan.

So make them work harder for your practice and your business development goals by framing your entries to appeal to three key audiences - juries, media and your future clients.

Then repurpose your entries into marketing materials for use across your other channels - website, social media, publishing, email newsletters, referrals - once the awards are over.

3. Win peer recognition and boost your reputation with clients

Simon Pendal Architect’s Beaconsfield House was shortlisted in the global 2021 AR House Awards, and published in The Architectural Review..
Photography by Rob Frith.

By responding succinctly to the criteria of each program – and highlighting the elements that juries want to see in entries – you can increase your chances of taking home the top prize.

Use your entries to also appeal to the editors and journalists, to increase your chances of generating media coverage too. Taken together, awards and publishing are both great channels to enhance your professional reputation with future clients; they both add a good dollop of social proof to your offering, which is as valuable as referrals and word-of-mouth.

Make the most of your chance in the awards spotlight to draw attention to your unique approach and attract new like-minded clients in future.

4. Promote your practice values and beliefs

Passive House architect Talina Edwards won awards for her project, practice and Architects Declare in 2021, after completing SLD’s CPD Awards Workshop. You can read her testimonial here.

Frame your entries around your practice values, core beliefs and the unique selling proposition that sets your approach apart from others.

That way you can appeal to and attract future clients who share your outlook and are aligned with your purpose. Because people who “get” your practice and share your values are more likely to want to work only with you, and to see the benefit in your service offering and fees.

So use your awards entry text to emphasise your mission - and describe how you worked towards it, in your recently completed project. And don’t miss the opportunity to explain how your unique approach improves both your clients’ lives and the community or environment more broadly.

5. Elevate your people as thought leaders

Tone Wheeler won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2021 Sustainability Awards, and was joint winner with Caroline Pidcock of the Leadership in Sustainability Prize from the Institute of Architects in 2021.

Stand out from the crowd by entering projects and people who push boundaries, test limits, and pursue a unique approach to design and architecture.

Describe how your atypical approach delivers show-stopping solutions that wow your clients, and benefit the broader community, and save the planet, and deliver unexpected delight in spades.

Great architecture usually achieves multiple objectives - often in the face of considerable constraints - so make sure your entries encapsulate all of the nuanced considerations and limitations that helped to frame your design response, and how you elegantly and effectively overcame all of the pain points and obstacles your clients faced.

6. Amplify the expert knowledge within your team

Use your awards to draw attention to the contributions of others – especially the talents and expert knowledge of younger members of your team.

Highlight the way you mentor them by sharing knowledge and insights - gathered and applied over years of practice – to advance the careers of others.

You can also identify the qualities that make your practice and services unique, especially the attributes that smooth the process for your clients and help them achieve their goals by reducing their stress and overwhelm.

The Great Cobar Museum by Dunn & Hillam Architects won the EMAGN Project Award from the NSW Chapter in 2022, highlighting the contribution of project architect Rose Davies. It also won three awards at the National Trust Awards in NSW, including the best-in-state prize.
Photography by Katherine Lu.

7. Highlight beautiful, customised solutions that meet your clients’ needs now, and into the future

Architectsmith Chisholm House won a Commendation at the Think Brick, Awards, was shortlisted in the HOUSES Awards, and won a category in House & Garden’s Top 50 Rooms, as well as being published in the same issue (November 2022).
Photography by Pablo Veiga.-

Whether you’re working on luxurious and high-end projects, or cost-efficient and functional spatial reconfigurations, the opportunity to create high-performance and aesthetically-pleasing buildings and spaces is one of the key attributes of the architect.

Focus on the ease and flow of your design and delivery processes; highlight all of the ways you shield your clients from stress and overwhelm; and choose images that illustrate the incredible results you have achieved on their behalf.

8. Focus on your unique approach, systems and outcomes

Jenny Edwards of Light House Architecture + Science uses awards to draw attention to the practice’s retrofit and energy upgrade expertise. She has also attended SLD’s CPD Awards Workshop, and you can read her feedback about it here.

Plenty of architects develop their own unique approach and methodology to deliver value and transform their client’s lives.

Use your entries to shine a light on your intellectual property and unique frameworks, and explain how they can be easily applied to benefit your future clients.

If you’d like some help preparing your awards strategy – or your awards entries – Sounds Like Design offers three different service options:

1. Done with you – Take the CPD workshop Strategically plan your Awards, here.

2. Done for you – if you’re an existing SLD client or your practice has completed our Review + Reset package, you can book time with Rachael to formulate your awards strategy, and you can also commission her to write your entries. 

Send Rachael an email to discuss your needs before 30 November, because her Awards sessions for submissions that are due in February usually fill up fast!

3. Do-it-yourself – purchase SLD’s Turn your Awards into Marketing Gold CPD workshop to watch the training and complete the workbook, which then serves as your blueprint for all of your award’s entries and to meet the CPD requirements.

The CPD Workshop includes:

• exclusive case studies from multi-award-winning practices including John Wardle Architects and Kerstin Thompson Architects;

• a content treatment template to help you repurpose your awards entries into marketing materials for your other channels;

• PowerPoint slides and a transcript that you can easily refer to after you have watched the video; and

• SLD’s 2022 Awards Calendar to help you plan your entries.

NB: The projects and awards coverage featured in this blog post were written by Rachael Bernstone, who has been writing award-winning awards entries for architects for 20 years, and is proud of her high success rate!