International Excellence Awards 2026 Winners Span Architecture, Interiors and AI Design

The International Excellence Awards 2026 has announced its winners, and the list reaches well beyond buildings. Now in its second edition, the programme run by Design Skill’s ADC Architecture & Design Community recognised work in architecture, interiors, landscape, fashion, product, packaging, communication and AI-powered design. Entries came from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, and established studios competed alongside young designers and students. The organisers have shared a selection of seven projects, from an off-grid retirement home in Mexico to a café bar in Taiwan that changes character after dark.

Architecture: a net-zero retreat and a campus under sweeping roofs

The Platinum award for Sustainable Architecture and Green Buildings went to Casa Jesús y Ulrike by Mauricio Ceballos of MCXA in Mexico. Planned as a retirement residence, the house is designed to reach net zero and run almost entirely on its own. It sits off the grid: rainwater is collected and managed on site, wastewater is treated locally, solar collectors heat domestic water and photovoltaic panels supply electricity, with satellite internet keeping the owners connected. Inside, a central corridor links four enclosed rooms, the main bedroom, a guest room, the kitchen and a TV room, and keeps views open to the landscape. Generous terraces, a vegetable garden and a second terrace looking toward a lake extend daily life outdoors. Taller A built the project.

In Educational and Institutional Architecture, a Gold award went to Violence of the Winds, a project from a team in the United States credited as Andreas P, Ana L, Aysin S, Aryaman G, Nele H, Param P, Ankit M, Gabriel P and Luan F. The image released with the results shows a long, low building beneath layered, upswept roof planes, lit from within against a night sky.

Interiors from Taiwan and the United States

Interior design produced three of the seven highlighted winners. Pandora, by Lee Chung-Lin of YUN-YIH Design Company, took Platinum in Hospitality and Hotel Interiors. The completed project in Taiwan is built around a staircase that climbs toward a ceiling window beside a tall wall of black stone, while a continuous timber structure hides its technical equipment and display cases line the kitchen.

Also from Taiwan, ReLazze by Derek Liang of Mingge Interior Design won Gold in Restaurant and Café Interiors. The designers organised the hybrid venue around the idea of day and night interweaving: it works as a relaxed coffee spot in daylight, and as evening falls the lighting dims and the room turns into a cocktail bar. Raw concrete anchors the ground floor, and the bar counter is topped with thin slabs of platinum grey stone.

The third interiors winner, Saint Ives by Max Nobel of Nobel LA, received Platinum in Custom Interior Design Projects. The multi-level residential transformation covers about 14,000 square feet on a one-acre site in the St. Ives enclave. A 12-foot pivot door in marble and brass opens onto five bedrooms, seven bathrooms and three powder rooms, along with a poker room, a cinema, a gym and a glass elevator, while outside an infinity pool and lounge areas face the view. Furniture and lighting come from Minotti, Baxter, Poliform and Rimadesio.

Packaging and AI-assisted fashion

Two winners came from outside architecture. Seraphina Sol of Canada won Gold in Custom Packaging Design for Unique Products with Adagio, a set of boxes for bean-to-bar chocolate. Printed timestamps and botanical drawings record the years and natural conditions behind each bar, and when the three designs are stacked their spines form the black and white keys of a piano, a nod to the musical term for a slow tempo that gives the series its name. In AI-Generated Apparel and Collection Design, Erustyle Studio from Japan earned Silver with Architected Form, a burgundy couture piece whose structural folds and sculptural shoulders treat the garment as a built object. The studio produced its images with AI assistance.

Full results and the 2027 edition

The complete list of 2026 winners, across all disciplines and award levels, is published in the organisers’ gallery of International Excellence Awards winners. Entries for the 2027 edition are already open and keep the categories for projects created fully or partly with AI. The early bird registration deadline is 30 October 2026. For another look at this year’s award season, see our coverage of the RIBA National Awards 2026.