Sony World Photography Awards 2026 Revealed Architecture & Design Category Winners

The 2026 version of the Sony World Photography Awards has announced its total winners, recognizing contributions throughout the Professional, Open, Student, and Youth competitions. Now in its nineteenth 12 months, this system continues to place itself as a key platform for each rising and established practitioners, drawing over 430,000 submissions from greater than 200 nations and territories. The program acknowledges work throughout ten Professional classes, together with Architecture & Design, alongside parallel Open, Student, and Youth competitions, and is accompanied by an annual exhibition at Somerset House in London.

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Within the Professional competitors, the Architecture & Design class highlights photographic approaches that interact with the constructed atmosphere by way of formal, social, and spatial narratives. This 12 months, Bangladeshi photographer Joy Saha was awarded first place for Homes of Haor, with André Tezza and Chen Liang receiving second and third place, respectively. The awarded and shortlisted works are offered as a part of the exhibition at Somerset House in London, on view from April 17 to May 4, 2026, alongside over 300 prints and digital shows providing a broad overview of up to date photographic practices.

Read on to find the Professional Competition 2026 successful and shortlisted pictures, together with brief descriptions supplied by the photographers.

First Place

Homes of Haor by Joy Saha, Bangladesh

Homes of Haor paperwork the vernacular structure of Ashtagram, Kishoreganj, in Bangladesh’s Haor area. Here, properties are constructed on naturally raised mounds that change into islands through the monsoon, surrounded by seasonal floodwater, and boats change into the first technique of journey. From above, the settlements type distinct patterns formed by elevation, water, and performance. Elevated roads, clustered dwellings, and punctiliously organized livestock areas reveal how rural communities design and adapt their constructed atmosphere to a panorama outlined by water.

Second Place

Everyday Structures by André Tezza, Brazil

This ongoing venture paperwork small neighbourhood grocery shops on the outskirts of Curitiba, in southern Brazil. These modest buildings type an structure of resistance that persists at the same time as giant retail chains reshape the town. Often family-run and linked to home areas, the shops merge work, reminiscence and dwelling right into a single constructing. While the town centre undergoes gentrification, the periphery stays culturally dense and visually vibrant. This sequence displays a perception that architectural magnificence exists in extraordinary, missed locations.

Third Place

Chinese Watchtowers by Chen Liang, China

Many of the watchtowers in Jiangmen, in China’s Guangdong Province, had been constructed through the time of the Republic of China (1912–1949), as public refuges and defensive fortresses. Most had been constructed by Chinese folks dwelling abroad, who had returned to their hometowns, or raised funds to construct them within the countryside, making them a novel architectural type that mixes each Chinese and Western influences. In 2007, the Kaiping Diaolou and Villages in Guangdong had been formally designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Shortlist

Ad Astra by Cristopher Rogel Blanquet Chavez & Daniel Ochoa de Olza, Mexico

By day, the border wall separating Mexico from the USA looms giant, imposing its measurement, however at night time, beneath the celebrities, it transforms. 

Historical Architecture of Iran: Endurance and Persistence Through Time by Farshid Rahimi Kalahroudi, Iran

Located within the historical metropolis of Shush (Susa) in southwestern Iran, this web site attracts pilgrims, historians and travellers alike. Believed to be the resting place of the biblical prophet Daniel, the tomb’s structure blends Islamic and native Persian types, that includes a domed construction with intricate brickwork and ornamental particulars.

Hotel Florio by Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, Italy

A corridor overlooking the pine forest surrounding Hotel Florio. Rooms like this had been used through the 1979 mafia summit, offering a totally serviced assembly house throughout the resort’s visitor and convention format.

Night Shift by Mathieu Moindron, France

An elevated view over a service district. Warehouses and places of work line an empty avenue within the foreground, whereas manufacturing facility chimneys and a half-hidden moon mark the horizon. The complete city system seems to maintain operating with out seen folks.

The Walls of Tohoku by Peter Lipton, Netherlands

Kabe (Japanese for wall) examines the remodeled panorama of Japan’s northeast coast following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. After the devastating waves crested over Tarō’s historic 10-metre-high “Great Wall”, the Japanese authorities launched a decade-long venture to assemble bolstered obstacles geared up with large, automated gates and built-in viewing home windows, a “Tsunami Shield” designed to face up to the immense strain of floodwaters.

Second-Hand Houses by Stephan Zirwes, Germany

Recycling previous constructing supplies is a sustainable option to construct small vacation properties. Wood, bricks and window frames from demolished buildings are given a brand new lease of life, lowering building waste and the necessity for brand new assets. Such reuse not solely creates a novel, charming constructing, but in addition contributes to environmental safety.

Mausoleum of the Martyrdom of Polish Villages in Michniów by Tomasz Kawecki, Poland

The Mausoleum of Martyrdom of Polish Villages in Michniów was created in 2009 by a group led by Mirosław Nizio. The sculptural type of the mausoleum is an architectural memorial to the pacifications that occurred in Michniów and different Polish villages in 1943, throughout World War II. The construction’s monolithic physique is open to nature, the sky and the panorama, altering–typically abruptly–with the climate, as gentle reaches the inside by way of cracks between the segments.