The Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers has long been recognised as one of North America’s most progressive platforms for emerging architectural voices. Every year, it offers a huge opportunity for fresh talents to present not only their architectural design but also the brainstorming, experimentation, and narration that shaped the design. In 2025, the competition has steered its attention to the theme of PLOT, a distinctive theme with layered meanings, whether it be the plot of land to be designed on or the unexpected circumstances and narratives that shape the design.
Theme for 2025: “Plot”
This year’s Architectural League Prize invites young designers to grapple with the idea of Plot, in all its layered meanings. A plot speaks to the underlying narratives and varying circumstances that inevitably shape design. Architecture interacts with these storylines, whether deliberately or unexpectedly, concluding the solutions for every plot twist, which may or may not result in a different approach to the design or a completely different design itself. Every building carries its backstory, and often, projects evolve in ways that surprise even their creators; navigating plot twists always evolves into a far more interesting ending.
The competition asks participants to identify and explore the recurring ideas, themes, or influences in their work, as well as the underlying ideologies that shape the course and outcome of their projects, even if those projects appear different on the surface. In 2025, “Plot” becomes a call to reflect on architecture’s role not only as a physical intervention, but as an unfolding narrative, where the built environment plays both setting and main character. All the unexpected nuances that shape the design come into play, eventually thickening the plot.
Highlight of the Winners
The 2025 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers was awarded to six practices whose work follows this year’s theme, “Plot,” through layered narratives, material consciousness, and innovative form-making, shaping their final designs.
- BALSA CROSETTO PIAZZI
(Juan Manuel Balsa, Rocio Crosetto Brizzio, Leandro Piazzi- Boston & Troy, NY, Argentina)
Founded in 2014, this transcontinental studio investigates networks and cycles, connecting materials, people, and ecologies. Their projects range from rural installations to urban interventions, often in perfect harmony with their surroundings. The Quincho & House in Córdoba, Argentina, showcases their capability to blend architecture with the site’s existing contextual tune.
- Otros Entregables
(Karina Caballero & Camila Ulloa Vásquez- Mexico City)
Formed in 2023, Otros Entregables defies conventional architectural outputs, working through podcasts, exhibitions, and collaborations with unconventional makers. Projects such as Consecuencias in Zyanya demonstrate their belief that architecture is ever-evolving subject to changing times instead of being static.
- David Costanza
(Ithaca, NY)
As principal of his own design-build studio and director of Cornell University’s Building Construction Lab, Costanza combines computational methods with hands-on craft. His work blurs the line between design and making, suggesting that a building’s plot is as much in its fabrication as in its form.
- DEBORA.STUDIO
(Deborah Garcia- New York, NY)
Garcia’s practice explores sound as a spatial material, creating multisensory installations that bridge memory and environment. Her SUPA Soundsystem project at Harvard ArtLab transforms acoustics into architectural structure, making auditory experience a part of the building’s story.
- 11 × 17
(Mahsa Malek & Alex Yueyan Li- Denver & Toronto)
Since 2022, 11 × 17 has worked across furniture, interiors, exhibitions, and publications, using materiality to question labour, resources, and construction practices. Each object becomes part of a wide narrative about how things are made and used.
- salazarsequeromedina
(Laura Salazar, Pablo Sequero & Juan Medina- New York, NY & New Orleans)
Founded in 2020, this collaborative studio focuses on civic engagement and the reuse of materials. Their works, such as Sobremesas in Lima and The Outdoor Room at the Seoul Biennale, inculcate community participation through the spatial strategy of open-ended structures.
Observations & Trends
The 2025 cohort signals a shift toward narrative-driven, material-conscious, and interdisciplinary architecture. Many winners engage with sustainability and resource awareness (BALSA CROSETTO PIAZZI, 11×17, salazarsequeromedina), while others foreground sensory experience and communal discourse (DEBORA.STUDIO, Otros Entregables, David Costanza). This year’s work challenges traditional notions, blending installations, podcasts, soundscapes, and modular forms. The term “young architect” is evolving, not just age-based, but defined by conceptual agility, context responsiveness, and a multiplicity of formats. In this context, architecture can be looked at as an adult whose personality is shaped by their childhood and varying life experiences, forming the plot for their life.
In an era defined by rapid change and constant transformations, the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers continues to be a vital platform for voices that reimagine architecture’s boundaries and bring in ideologies with depth, clarity, and well-thought-out visions. The 2025 winners, through the theme Plot, demonstrate how design can blend narrative, collaboration, and adaptability, essentially the segregated parts of a design process into built form. They remind us that design is not about a conclusion but the process, and every parameter that shapes the design has its own story to tell. As their practices unfold across scales and media, they signify tomorrow’s architecture: dynamic, reflective, and deeply engaged with the stories our environments inhabit. The Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers is playing an important role in today’s era to concretize this theory.
References:
Roche, D. J. (2025, April 23). Winners of the 2025 Architectural League Prize engage with “plot.” The Architect’s Newspaper. https://www.archpaper.com/2025/04/2025-architectural-league-prize-winners/
League Prize 2025: Plot – The Architectural League of New York. (2025, August 4). The Architectural League of New York. https://archleague.org/competition/call-for-entries-league-prize-2025/
Roche, D.J. (2025). Winners of the 2025 Architectural League Prize engage with ‘plot’. [online] The Architect’s Newspaper. Available at: https://www.archpaper.com/2025/04/2025-architectural-league-prize-winners/.
