RIBA Awards 2024: Jury and local ambassadors application

Every year the RIBA calls for volunteers to help judge the RIBA Awards. Every judge plays a crucial part in a rigorous and thorough process that leads ultimately to the RIBA Stirling Prize and RIBA International Awards, as well as the Royal Gold Medal.

The task of judging buildings is a fascinating one and carries the responsibility of upholding and celebrating the highest standards of architectural design.

Applications to judge the 2024 RIBA UK Awards are now closed. Applications to become a local ambassador for the 2024 RIBA International Awards will remain open until January. Please read the information provided below before starting the application form.

Judging involves balancing the complexities that any building project will have faced, with aesthetic, sustainability, and sometimes conservation considerations, as well as the local context. It requires an examination of the client's brief and how intelligently and creatively that has been fulfilled while taking into account the constraints of budget and planning.

Being part of the jury also means taking a collective view and having a clear vision of what constitutes architectural excellence. It is not necessarily an easy task, but it is an immensely rewarding one. It offers the chance to influence the most high profile activity of the year in architecture while presenting excellent opportunities for personal and professional development.

Judges will be asked to participate in an online briefing session in January 2024.

Please note: in order to ensure a rotation of RIBA Awards judges, those who participated on RIBA Regional Awards judging panels in 2023 must wait until the 2025 process to re-apply.

What does a regional jury do?

The regional juries, consisting of a regional jury chair, regional representative, regional lay person, sustainability expert, and conservation expert will meet in 2024 in the relevant region. Using the entry materials provided, they will discuss and decide which projects will be shortlisted and visited.

RIBA organise all RIBA Regional Awards jury visits and will liaise with the architect directly, inviting both the architect and client to attend the visit. Regional jury visits will take place in February/March 2024 and may involve several days on the road and possible overnight stays.

Once visits have been completed, the jury will recommend their RIBA Regional Award and RIBA Regional Special Award winners. The regional jury chair will then be invited to make their recommendations for a RIBA National Award with the RIBA Awards group in April 2024.

What does the national jury do?

The national jury is made up of current RIBA Members and newly co-opted members of the RIBA Awards group, and will meet in April 2024. Using the entry materials provided and recommendations from the regional jury chair, they will discuss and decide which projects will be shortlisted and visited in consideration for RIBA National Awards.

The RIBA Awards team organise all RIBA National Awards jury visits and will liaise with the architect directly, inviting both the architect and client to the visit. National jury visits take place in May/June, and once completed the national jury chairs will meet to decide all RIBA National Award winners.

Jury roles

For both the jury chair and regional representative roles, the following requirements apply for Architect:

• they are architects in a RIBA Chartered Practice/organisation, with a body of work that must include having received one or more peer-reviewed national or international architecture awards
• must be based in the UK
• won or placed highly in high profile design competitions
• and/or has received other equivalent recognition or proven equivalent achievements in the last 10 years
• the regional representative will be local to the area that they will be judging
• the jury chair must be able to lead the jury panel for up to seven days during the RIBA Regional Awards process. This includes: leading during the shortlisting meeting, judging visits, reporting back to the RIBA Awards group, and making recommendations for RIBA National Awards
• the jury chair must also submit citations for all winning projects in their region

Lay person: the lay person is someone who has not trained or qualified as an architect. However, they must have made a significant contribution to architecture in its broadest sense in their own creative or technical field by either:

• promotion, administration, and outreach
• helping to build a more sustainable community
• education of future generations

Conservation expert: the conservation expert is an architect who specialises in conservation with extensive experience in working with historic buildings. Their expertise should be demonstrated by:

• accredited by the RIBA Conservation Register
• Architects Accredited in Building Conservation leading a specialist conservation team or a practice that specialises in conservation
• having received one or more peer-reviewed national or international architecture or construction awards for conservation
• being part of the RIBA Conservation Group

Sustainability expert: the sustainability expert is an architect, engineer, or designer who specialises in sustainability in the built environment. Their expertise should be demonstrated by:

• working in a practice committed to sustainability (an architectural, engineering, or design practice)
• having received one or more peer-reviewed national or international architecture or construction awards for sustainability

Academic: the academic must be an accomplished professional in the field of architectural education with a distinguished career as an Architecture tutor, researcher, writer or critic in the UK and/or abroad. Their expertise should be demonstrated by:

• significant contribution to architectural education over a substantial period of time
• direct engagement in the effective delivery of the processes of teaching and learning in the context of higher education
• effective leadership of teaching or administrative staff in a school of architecture

Preference will be given to individuals who are RIBA Members or who have had a career in a School of Architecture validated by RIBA in the UK and/or abroad.

What does the international jury do?

The international jury is made up of local ambassadors and Grand Jury. A RIBA local ambassador will be an Architect with a knowledge of the local area and/or region where the project is situated, and be required to have already visited or have plans to visit the project.

The RIBA local ambassadors will be invited to attend an online meeting in May 2024 with the RIBA Awards Group and Grand Jury, where they will present their recommendations, thoughts and analysis of the project they have visited for RIBA International Awards.

Subsequently, the RIBA Awards Group and Grand Jury will decide on which projects are awarded RIBA International Awards for Excellence and the shortlist for International Emerging Architect and International Prize, in accordance with the judging guidelines.

The Grand Jury will visit all shortlisted projects in September 2024 and once all visits have concluded, the jury will meet for a final time to decide the winner.

Jury roles

Architect: the architect must be in an international recognised architecture organisation with a body of work that must include:

• received one or more peer reviewed international architecture awards (not just RIBA)
• won or placed highly in high profile design competitions
• has received other equivalent recognition or proven equivalent achievements in the last 10 years

Lay person: the lay person is someone who has not trained or qualified as an architect. However, they must have made a significant contribution to international architecture in its broadest sense in their own creative or technical field by either:

• international promotion, administration, and outreach
• helping to build a more sustainable community
• education of future generations

If you have any questions, contact the RIBA Awards team at awards@riba.org.