Aerogel Architecture Award 2023

The jury is searching for outstanding realized projects internationally to showcase the best projects of architects, civil engineers or exceptional project ideas of students from these fields. The best projects will be shortlisted for the Aerogel Architecture Awards ceremony hosted in Duebendorf near Zurich at the NEST building on the Empa campus, which will give broad recognition to the projects. The projects will be published in relevant international magazines and online portals. The award celebrates the best examples with regards to energy efficiency, unconventional solutions, translucent daylighting or high performing buildings solutions with use of superinsulating aerogel materials.

Realized Solutions / architects, civil engineers and their studios
Student Designs / architecture and civil engineering students

January 12, 2023 – Competition announcement and registration opens
April 30, 2023 – Project submission deadline (23:59 hours Zurich time)
June 02, 2023, afternoon – Winners’ announcement event, NEST building, Empa Duebendorf (on-site and public stream)

Architectural and civil engineering studios can submit realized projects of renovation, refurbishment or new buildings located in any country. Students of architecture and civil engineering can submit their proposals and design studio projects with use of aerogel based materials. The award ceremony will take place in English. Projects should not be older than three years. It is highly recommended to submit realized projects of renovated or protected buildings, refurbished and new buildings, where the energy efficiency was improved using aerogel insulation materials or the translucency of silica aeorgels was used. The winners will be invited to Switzerland for the award event, which will take place at the NEST building on the Empa campus in Duebendorf (Zurich). They will receive an award and will be invited to shortly introduce their project within approx. 10 minutes to a broader audience.

Please send a ZIP or RAR file (max. 20MB) to  (secretary) until the deadline. For your submission, please choose a 6-digit identification number (0-9) . Please avoid numbers in the sequence, as well as same numbers or letters. Please mark your poster and name the ZIP file with your identification number.

Documents to be submitted:

• One PDF A1 size poster (portrait) with plans, section, photographs and linear drawings (poster layout to download)
• One to three JPEG-images: Cover photos of the project in high resolution, which will be used in media and webpages
• One detail of the use of the aerogel based insulation (on the poster), one linear technical drawing with highlighted aerogel part (Blue RGB – 95,183,215), a list of materials and, if available, photos of the detail

Please fill out the registration form and describe the selected details on aerogel use in your project in approx. 300 words. The poster can include text, pictures and details. 

With your submission you agree with the publication of the project and confirm that you know about the property rights for images, graphics and drawings, which are part of your submission.