Building of the Year 2026

As another year begins, ArchDaily’s Building of the Year Awards returns to spotlight the best architecture of 2025, as chosen by our global community. Now in its 17th edition, the Awards once again task our readers with the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the most impactful projects of the year. By voting, you are part of an unbiased, distributed network of jurors and peers that has elevated the most relevant projects in the world. Over the next weeks, your collective intelligence will filter over 3,000 projects down to just 15 stand-outs - the best in each category on ArchDaily.

During the next two weeks, you’ll be in charge of nominating buildings (in fifteen categories) for the shortlist, and then voting for the winners of each category. We will guide you through these stages accordingly.

During the nomination stage, each registered user will have the chance to nominate one project (published between January 1st 2025 and December 31st 2025) per category. This stage starts on January 27th and ends on February 10th at 18:00 EST. After this, five projects per category will move into the voting stage, starting February 11th and ending on February 18th at 18:00 EST. The winners will be announced on February 19th, 2026.

Eligible Projects

• All completed buildings published for the first time between January 1st, 2025 and December 31st, 2025 under the following categories are eligible for this award: Houses, Housing, Healthcare Architecture, Industrial Architecture, Educational Architecture, Sports Architecture, Cultural Architecture, Hospitality Architecture, Offices, Interiors Architecture, Commercial Architecture, Public & Landscape Architecture, Religious Architecture, Small Scale & Installations, and Best Applied Product.
• By submitting their works to ArchDaily for publication, offices agree to enter this competition and to be present in the associated promotional materials.
• Authorship and copyright of each project belong to the offices and architects mentioned on each project’s page.

Timeline

• The nomination process starts on January 27th and ends on February 10th, 2026 at 18:00 EST.
• The voting round starts on February 11th and ends on February 18th, 2026 at 18:00 EST.
• The winners will be announced on February 19th, 2026.

How to Vote

• Only registered users can vote.
• Anyone can register an ArchDaily account to vote. To do so, you must follow the registration link and complete the required steps to become a registered user (or use your existing ArchDaily account).
• All registered users can vote.
• To register you must use a valid email address. Votes coming from users without a valid email address will be removed.
• You can only vote for one building per category in each stage.

• Offices and architects are encouraged to promote their works for voting, but no monetary or virtual gift compensation should be offered. You can use the following link:  https://boty.archdaily.com/us/2026

First stage: Nominations

• Starting January 27th, 2026, registered users will be able to nominate their favorite project for each of the 15 categories included in the Awards. One vote per category.
• The first stage ends on February 10th, 2026 at 18:00 EST.
• The five projects with the most votes for each category will move on to the finalists round.

Second stage: Finalists

• On February 11th, 2026, the platform will be updated with the shortlisted projects, and registered users will be able to vote for their favorite projects among the finalists.
• Users can vote for one project per category.
• The finalist round will end on February 18th, 2026 at 18:00 EST.

Winners

• Winners of each category will be announced on ArchDaily on February 19th, 2026.
• Winners of each category will receive a certificate from ArchDaily.
• The 5 finalists and the winners of each category can use the respective title for their own purposes. ArchDaily will provide promotional material.

Important notes

• All data of registered users will be kept private and will not be shared with third parties.
• After each stage, all nominations/votes will be checked. Votes submitted by fake/invalid registrations will be removed. All attempts to abuse the system, such as creating dummy accounts, suspicious behavior from individual IP addresses or any other techniques to generate nominations/votes in automated ways will be logged and reviewed for removal.
• ArchDaily reserves the right to analyze the data during every stage of the Awards in order to ensure a fair process.
• All questions should be sent to Daniela Porto and Hana Abdel, coordinators of the awards, through our contact form.