2022 Vectorworks Design Scholarship Winners

Pictured above is Michelle Wanitzek's “Nomad Coworking,” which won the 2022 Richard Diehl Award, the grand prize for the Vectorworks Design Scholarship named for the founder of Vectorworks. The project is Wanitzek's master's thesis in interior design at the Faculty of Design Wismar, Germany. The design for a coworking and coffee shop in a listed building in Wismar involved the complete gutting of the original and the insertion of a new structure with varying floor-to-floor heights, all the while retaining the protected facade.

Interior designer and member of the panel of international judges Birgit Von Moltke called the winning project “courageous, creative and consistent” as well as “a prime example of holistic interior design for existing historic buildings.” The latter sentiment was echoed by fellow juror Oliver Hantke, who is also Dean of the Faculty of Design Wismar: “Her concept of multi-layered use picks up on current trends in the construction industry including sustainability and efficiency strategy, utilizing historical buildings, revitalizing small-town structures, new forms of working environments and providing communication structures to strengthen social cohesion.”

The Diehl Award and the 21 other scholarship winners were selected from more than 1,000 submissions. Below is the full list of winners accompanied by illustrations of “Nomad Coworking,” followed by images of the seven winners in the architecture category. Visit the Vectorworks Scholarship website for more images of the winning designs and glimpses of the runners up.

• “Timber: Material Explorations and Speculations” by Ahmed Helal, City College of New York
• “Mercado Salado” (Salt Market)  by Claudia A Crespo Castro, University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras - School of Architecture
• “The Conservative Pubs of Hierarchy”’ by Nicoleta Rugina, Birmingham City University
• “Working and Living in Symbiosis” by Ildut Lesteven, Ecole Nationale Supérieur d'Architecture Paris Val-de-Seine
• “Ubuntu – Small Town, Big House” by Yui Hasegawa and Yori Mihara, Musashino Art University
• “Food Forms” by Blanka Dominika Major, Severin Jann and Valentin Ribi, ETH Zürich
• “Everything Remains the Same” by Fabian Moser, Niels Striby, Merve Simsek, Helene Merkle and Thomas Ederer, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

• “Site, Sight, Insight” by Chui Shan Tsang, University College London
• “Ingolstadt - On the Maelstrom into a Challenged Future” by Lea Jaud, University of Copenhagen
• “Rising with the Phoenix: The Next Generation of Blue-Green Infrastructural Design in its Re-Integration with Social & Cultural Realms” by Lok Tim Chan, Cornell University
• “Rain Park” by Marta Szar, University of Technology in Cracow
• “Nature in a Grid- Transformation of a Ruin” by Simeon von Russow, Berlin University of Applied Sciences (BHT)

• “Marylebone Proper Hotel” by Sara Riofrio, Solent University
• “Vitra Stant Design” by Sila Şimşek and Edanaz Topaktaş, Hacettepe University
• “Agricultural Childcare Center 'Het Snuitje'” by Jannie Dircks, Jan des Bouvrie Academy - Saxion Deventer
• “Pet Ceremony Hall” by Cai Rou Wang, Osaka University of Arts

• “Shakespeare’s Women” by Brock Keeler, University of Victoria
• “Blood Wedding Reimagined” by Kane Hollingsworth, Nottingham Trent University
• “Songs for a New World” by Martin Benesh, State University of New York at New Paltz
• “Art exhibition ‘Lokhalle Mainz’” by Celina Rau, Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen
• “Francine Vasse Theater: Renovation of the Scenic Networks” by Pierre Pino, Gabriel Guist'hau College