The role of architectural awards criteria in identity and belonging concepts enhancement in contemporary architectural desig

Abstract EN

Multiple of International and Regional organizations have been active in emphasizing the conservation and employment of architectural heritage in contemporary design, especially after the wide spread of modern architecture principles and international style design.

These organizations have led to the interest in history and heritage since the mid of twentieth century.

By encouraging architects to conserve, revive, and rehabilitate the traditional sites and buildings through number of symbioses and conferences.

Besides encouraging the use of architectural heritage (its features and concepts) in new architectural design to show the identity of each place and society.

The most famous organizations are Arab Towns Organization (ATO), and Aga Khan Organization which has published many books about this subject, besides establishing awards for unique projects and distinguished designers.

The research problem can be specified as the need to show the evaluation criteria of choosing awards' winners that are given by the mentioned organizations.

And it aims to analyse the most significant winning projects in architectural design to explain criteria development of through time since award establishment till nowadays to determine the most appropriate methods of design, which provide identity, belonging, and contemporary concepts in the same time as the best methods for future architectural design.

The awards' criteria are applied to contemporary local projects to demonstrate their expression of identity and belonging concept.

The research concludes that some projects have the potential to create a special identity that is known locally and globally, while other projects use local characteristics to achieve belonging.