Judges

Kashef Chowdhury co-founded the Dhaka-based firm URBANA in 1995, leading the practice as principal since 2005. The practice’s projects address Bangladesh’s watery landscape: as Niklaus Graber wrote in the AR in 2019, ‘Chowdhury has developed an architecture which leaves room for water, but offers protection against it too.’ Recent projects include the Kuakata cyclone shelter and Friendship Hospital, for which URBANA won the AR Emerging awards in 2012.

Austrian architect Martin Rauch founded the practice Lehm Ton Erde – meaning ‘loam, clay, earth’ – in 1999 in Schlins, his home town. Specialising in earthen construction, Rauch has constructed numerous projects across the world, including Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, as well as further afield in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and South Africa.