Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2025

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Working Drawing Award will be judged by former RIBA president and UK Green Building Council chair Sunand Prasad; former AJ editor and director of Amos Rex in Helsinki, Kieran Long; and Pablo Garcia, associate professor at the Department of Creative Practices, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The £2,000 prize for the best working drawing is one of several which will be awarded as part of the wider Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2025. The is the sixth year that the annual awards programme, which has been running for 31 years and has a £27,000 total prize fund, will have a dedicated working drawing selection panel and its own display within the exhibition.

According to the brief: ‘The Trinity Buoy Wharf Working Drawing Award 2025 aims to explore and promote the role of drawing within architecture, design and making processes – and is open to drawing practitioners worldwide. As a special category within the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2025 exhibition, there is a separate Entry Process and Selection Panel.

‘The Working Drawing Award aims to explore, expand and enhance our knowledge and understanding of working drawings today.

‘It is anticipated that those who will submit their drawings will be: architects, designers, engineers, makers, planners, scientists, amongst others – those working in, or studying for, professions that use drawings to ideate, plan, propose concepts, communicate ideas and designs, and who make drawings from which something can or will be made, fabricated or constructed.’

Trinity Buoy Wharf is a cultural and educational hub occupying the site of a former lighthouse and maintenance depot next to the River Thames in East London. The annual competition is open to ‘all emerging, mid-career and established drawing practitioners from the UK and internationally’.

Last year’s winner was Emma Douglas with the watercolour artwork ‘Plan for Cato Mural, Year 8, Spa Fields.’ The winner of the 2023 prize was Ade Olaosebikan who was selected for a pair of drawings – Reconstituted planes – The Barcelona Pavilion Reimagined 1 and 2 – which used digital techniques and technical pencil on tracing paper respectively.

Architect participants may enter submissions to both the working drawing prize and the overall drawing prize competition. While the working drawing prize features a £2,000 top prize, additional prizes worth £25,000 in total are also available in the main category.

Artworks must have been created after January 2024 and may be up to 2.4m in size. The overall winners are due to be announced in October and will feature in a touring exhibition starting at Trinity Buoy Wharf.

The registration fee is £20 for up to three drawings and there is a £15 concession for students.