System, Best Furniture and People's Choice at the AZ

Sunday 10th at Toronto's Thompson Hotel, 250 guests cheered for the winners, People's Choice and finalists of the international competition of Azure MagazineAZ AWARDS

From as far away as Italy, India, Mexico and the Netherlands, and professionals and aficionados convened at the Thompson Hotel to learn who would take home an AZ trophy. MC and CBC News anchor Diana Swain kicked off the night by thanking all who entered, as well as the competition's sponsors – Audi, Keilhauer, GE Monogram, George Brown College, AdBeast and v2comm.

Sixty finalists were selected from over 600 submissions by a star-studded jury: architects Imola Bérczi of UNStudio and Brigitte Shim of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, industrial designerJeffrey Bernett of Consultants for Design Strategy, interior designer Elaine Cecconi of Cecconi Simone, landscape architect Jennifer Guthrie of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, and Mike Kielhauer of office systems manufacturer Keilhauer. People's Choice awards were also designated, following weeks of online voting earlier this year.

The submissions included beautifully functional and space-saving designs such as our New Logica kitchen system and Duravit's collapsible OpenSpace shower stall and luxurious yet sensible spaces including Koji Tsutsui Architect's clustered residential rooms and BNKR Arquitectura‘s stark funeral chapel.

In concepts, Mark Horton Architecture's sports training facility and a student-designed floating power plant took home trophies. Patkau Architects nabbed two honours for their lean, minimal skating shelters in Winnipeg and for the subterranean cottages proposed for the site of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.

The Winners and People's Choices for the 2012 AZ Awards are:

Best Furniture Design

Winner: Waver Chair by Konstantin Grcic for Vitra

People's Choice: Piano Clothing Rack by Patrick Seha for Feld

Best Furniture Systems Design

Winner & People's Choice: New Logica by for Valcucine

Best Lighting Design

Winner: 28d by Omer Arbel for Bocci

People's Choice: Line by Frederic Galliot and Dirk Zylstra for Eureka Lighting

Best Interior Product Design

Winner & People's Choice: OpenSpace by EOOS for Duravit

Best Residential Architecture

Winner: InBetween House by Koji Tsutsui Architect & Associates

People's Choice: Two Hulls House by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects

Best Commercial and Institutional Architecture over 1,000 square metres

Winner: Nike Football Training Centre, Soweto by RUFproject

People's Choice: TIFF Bell Lightbox by KPMB Architects

Best Commercial and Institutional Architecture under 1000 square metres

Winner: Sunset Chapel by BNKR Arquitectura

People's Choice: Tori Tori Restaurant by Rojkind Arquitectos + Esrawe Studio 

Best Landscape Architecture

People's Choice: Sugar Beach by Claude Cormier + Associés

Best Temporary Architecture

Winner: Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts by Thinc Design

People's Choice: Winnipeg Skating Shelters by Patkau Architects

Best Residential Interior

Winner & People's Choice: V4 House by Studio MK27

Best Commercial Interior

Winner: Alchemist boutique by Rene Gonzalez Architect

People's Choice: LYCS Architecture Office by LYCS Architecture

Best Unbuilt Competition Scheme

Winner: Cottages at Fallingwater by Patkau Architects

People's Choice: Two Office Towers by REX + JET + AIM

Best Unrealized Concept

Winner: Multi-Sport Training Facility by Mark Horton Architecture

People's Choice: New Mecca Masterplan by Partisans

A+ Award for Best Student Project

Winner & People's Choice: Polytropism – Tower Concept by Caileigh MacKellar and Newsha Ghaeli (McGill University)