This yr, for the primary time in this system’s historical past, Architizer Imaginative and prescient Awards winners shall be introduced dwell and in-person at RELEASE [AEC] — an industry-wide gathering centered on know-how and innovation in structure. The occasion takes place on October 20, 2026, on the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris, and can run from a morning welcome reception right through to a late-evening networking occasion. As a Imaginative and prescient Awards finalist or winner, you’ll be invited to attend the complete day — and in case your work stands out, chances are you’ll be requested to talk as a part of the occasion.
The venue itself warrants consideration for anybody with an architectural schooling. The Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie sits inside Parc de la Villette, the 55-hectare city park in Paris’ nineteenth arrondissement whose masterplan — designed by Bernard Tschumi following an influential 1982 competitors — is among the defining texts of deconstructivist structure. Tschumi’s proposal, with its grid of purple follies, its superimposed techniques of factors, traces and surfaces, and its deliberate rejection of any single organizing narrative, stays a landmark of late Twentieth-century design considering studied in structure colleges worldwide.
For a chance to hitch us in Paris this fall, begin your entry at this time and full it earlier than the Fundamental Entry Deadline at midnight PT on Might 22, 2026:
Enter the Imaginative and prescient Awards
That is your second to step out from behind the display screen and onto the stage! Learn on for extra particulars on what to look ahead to at this thrilling occasion.
What RELEASE [AEC] Is (and Why You Need to Be There)
Launch [AEC] 2025. Picture by Philippe Servent
After its inauguration final yr, RELEASE [AEC] has already established itself as one of many extra distinctive gatherings within the AEC calendar. Its premise is simple, however its ambition shouldn’t be: to provide the {industry} a devoted annual house to reckon truthfully with the place know-how is taking the AEC {industry} — not via a typical commerce present, however via substantive dialog.
The format places that ambition into observe. The day includes keynote classes, dwell demonstrations from innovators throughout the AEC panorama, hands-on workshops and intensive networking; it’s structured to encourage precise trade between designers and the businesses constructing the instruments that may outline the following decade of the constructed surroundings. The 2025 inaugural version, held in Paris, drew an engaged skilled viewers and set a tone that feels genuinely completely different from the usual convention circuit.
The imaginative and prescient is articulated in RELEASE [AEC] ’s manifesto: as technological improvements quickly reshape the AEC sector in actual time, this type of gathering is greater than mandatory. That worldview aligns intently with what the Imaginative and prescient Awards has at all times acknowledged in its personal manner — that structure’s future is being formed within the studios, screens and minds of the folks imagining what it may very well be. The partnership, in that sense, is a pure one.
What Being a Finalist or Winner Will get You
The Imaginative and prescient Awards celebration will observe within the footsteps of Architizer’s notable {industry} gatherings, together with latest occasions in New York, Paris and a number of cities throughout China. Images by Alex Bonnemaison (high proper), Zack DeZon (high and backside left)
For the 2026 Imaginative and prescient Awards, reaching the finalist stage carries a brand new dimension of which means. Finalists and winners shall be invited to attend the complete RELEASE [AEC] program — a day of keynotes, demonstrations and conversations at one in all Europe’s nice establishments of science and tradition. Winners shall be introduced dwell, on stage, in a room stuffed with the folks for whom this work issues most: fellow architects, technologists, visualizers, photographers, filmmakers and the purchasers and collaborators who fee and champion their work.
Choose finalists and winners may also be invited to talk as a part of the day’s program — a chance to place their work and concepts in entrance of a global viewers that’s, by definition, already within the intersection of structure and innovation.
Past the ceremony itself, the RELEASE [AEC] partnership extends the Imaginative and prescient Awards’ attain into the AEC know-how group in a significant manner. That is an viewers that understands, maybe higher than most, how a lot the instruments of visualization, conceptual design and architectural communication form the buildings that ultimately get constructed.
The way to Get There
The venue for Launch [AEC] this yr is the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris’ verdant Parc de la Villette
The trail is simple: Enter the Imaginative and prescient Awards, make the shortlist and are available to Paris.
The 2026 program is open throughout 4 class teams — Architectural Idea, Architectural Rendering & Drawing, Architectural Images & Video and Architectural Visionary — with greater than 70 accolades out there. Whether or not you’re employed at a worldwide agency or independently, whether or not your medium is computational rendering or hand-drawing, whether or not you shoot buildings or make movies in regards to the folks behind them, there’s a class on your work.
Entries are accepted from studios, particular person practitioners, and college students worldwide. In every class, each a Jurors’ Alternative and an Editors’ Alternative Award can be found — and entrants can decide in to the Better of the Yr Awards for added recognition throughout this system’s six main inventive disciplines.
The Fundamental Entry Deadline is on Might 22. In the meantime, this system’s Ultimate Entry Deadline closes on June twenty sixth. Winners are introduced in Paris in October.
Begin your entry, discover your class, and provides your work the stage it deserves.
Enter the Imaginative and prescient Awards
Enter the 2026 Architizer Imaginative and prescient Awards at visionawards.architizer.com. Study extra about RELEASE [AEC] at release-aec.com.
Prime picture shared with the permission of Cité des sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris.
