In a world in crisis and with many wondering what architecture is good for, we must reflect on how the discipline claims to decide what is good. How do awards work, and what can they do to steer architectural practice?

Following an open call, to which fifty-six applicants from twenty countries responded, we invited eight architectural thinkers to gather online for three weeks of intense research, interviews, discussion, and provocation to produce a simple field guide to sabotaging architectural awards. The selected participants are: Anna Hentschel (Berlin, Germany), Emilienne Fernande Bodo (Munich, Germany), Shayari de Silva (Colombo, Sri Lanka), Francisco Moura Veiga (Basel, Switzerland), Tomà Berlanda (Cape Town, South Africa), Monica Hutton (Toronto, Canada), Ioana Lupascu (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), and Stephen Parnell (Newcastle, UK).

The workshop begins by interviewing people involved in awards—from jury members and winners to founders, organizers and bureaucrats. These conversations are normally private, but exceptionally this interview with The Architectural Review’s Editor in Chief Manon Mollard is public. To attend, please register.

How to is a series of intense annual residencies that bring small teams together at CCA to produce a new tool—which can be physical, digital, or somewhere in between—and rapidly begin to address a specific opportunity or need. For the 2018 workshop, please visit How to: not make an architecture magazine, and How to: disturb the public for the 2019 workshop.