Acclaimed Irish architect Niall McLaughlin has claimed that award wins and nominations can be a poisoned chalice, as practices become pigeonholed as designers of a certain type of building. Speaking at the 2017 Ecobuild conference in London, McLaughlin said the influence of award shortlists and the “conservative stance in architectural procurement” means that “everybody wants something like you’ve done before.” The practice he leads, Niall McLaughlin Architects, have twice been

Wolf Prix, the design principal and CEO of Austrian architecture studio Coop Himmelb(l)au has slammed design competitions, arguing they “diminish the value of our thinking.” In an entertaining and frank talk about the state of the industry and the challenges of tomorrow, made at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin last week, Prix claimed that “to make a competition is a very stupid thing.” “I repeat myself a thousand times,