On Friday, June 21, AZURE celebrated the winners and finalists of the 14th annual AZ Awards. Taking place at the Evergreen Brick Works, the AZ Awards 2024 Gala gathered architects, designers, urbanists, artists and more for one glorious occasion.

Setting the mood, MC Lucia Cesaroni – an opera singer who has performed on the world’s most lauded stages – serenaded the crowd. And our Guest of Honour, the landscape architect Julie Bargmann, spoke of the ideals that she returns to again and again in her groundbreaking projects.

And AZURE Editor Elizabeth Pagliacolo introduced the audience to our next big event: the Human/Nature conference, taking place October 24 and 25 at the George Brown Waterfront Campus.

Journey Through Geometry, this year’s featured gala installation, was created by Safoura Zahedi. The reflective fractal sculpture reflects the architect-artist’s yearlong research into the prevalent patterns of Islamic architecture.

The winners of the AZ Awards 2024 took home a trophy designed by juror Evan Jerry, of Studio Anansi, made with upcycled marble sourced from architecture project offcuts.

Throughout the Brick Works, the AZ Awards partners – Alumilex, Keilhauer and Cosentino – and sponsors Technogym and Colombo showed off new offerings, which guests could explore while enjoying special wines from Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Stratus Vineyards.

GALA SLIDESHOW

Among the guests of the AZ Awards 2024 Gala was Stanley Sun of Mason Studio (centre)

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Stratus provided the fine wines that guests enjoyed during the Gala.

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The team of Cosentino, an AZ Awards Gala partner.

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Artist-curator (and AZ Awards Gala volunteer) Lukus Toane and architect Anna Kao.

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Members of the AZURE team, from left to right: Sophie Sobol, Sydney Shilling, Kendra Jackson, Elizabeth Pagliacolo, Brian Wong, Conner Palomba, Tori Rapp, Mahasti Eslahjou and Stefan Novakovic.

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A guest photographing Journey Through Geometry, Safoura Zahedi’s installation.

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Architect-artist Safoura Zahedi with MCM’s Michael Kovalcik.

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Technogym showed off its latest fitness machines.

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Colombo’s various hardware styles were also on view.

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A guest happily seated on Keilhauer’s Lull lounges.

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Among the evening’s winners, Lateral Office, Teeple Architects and the Inuit Design Advisory Council took home the award for Best Concept; Lateral’s Lola Sheppard accepted the award.

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The team of Frontier accepted the award for Best in Experiential Graphic Design.

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University of Cambridge student Xidian Wang won the Best in Social Good category for her project, New Domesticity.

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Temitope Akinsiku, centre, led the team that won the A+ Student Award for Sabon Gida, Sabon Farko – “Home After Crisis”.

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Partisans, represented by Teddy Shropshire, won the People’s Choice in Lighting Schemes for Toronto restaurant Gusto 501.

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WXY’s Claire Weisz (middle) and Farida Abu-Bakare (right) received a People’s Choice award for their Palaver Bench; later in the evening, they won both the PC nod and the jury award in Environmental Leadership for RISE UP, a land stewardship project in Queens, NY.

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PUBLIC WORK took home the award in Urban Design, Unbuilt Developments for its Steelport vision for Hamilton.

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Nick Savage (Superkül and MCM) with architects Neno Kovacevic (Arcadis) and Uros Novakovic (Office OU).

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The team of Vogt, one of the Gala sponsors.

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The team of Dark Tools, one of the Gala sponsors.

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Tiktok’s Karen Kang, DesignAgency’s Allen Chan and his spouse, Allison McColeman.

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Lightform’s COO Bobby Buchkowsky and account executive Kaitlin Hegarty.

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Jenna Allain and Bahar Ghaemi, the Creative Director of Products at Yabu Pushelberg, which took top prize in the Single-Piece Furniture category.

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PR powerhouses Lisa Barnes and Lindsay Singer.

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Bellosound provided the tunes as the party continued into the night.

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The 2024 AZ Awards is presented by Alumilex, Cosentino and Keilhauer and sponsored by Colombo Design America and Technogym. Gala sponsors are George Brown College’s Brookfield Sustainability Institute, Dark Tools, Landscape Forms, Scavolini and  Vogt.

Media Partners: Archello, ArchDaily, Archilovers, Archinect, Archiproducts, The Architect’s Newspaper, Architonic, Bustler, Design Week Mexico, v2com newswire and World-Architects.