Vote for your favourite Dezeen Awards 2020 entries in our first ever public vote

The shortlists for Dezeen Awards 2020 will be announced next week – and Dezeen readers will then able to vote for their favourite entries in our inaugural public vote.

Our jury of 75 industry-leading professionals including Norman Foster, Paola Antonelli, Jaime Hayon and Michelle Ogundehin has now completed the shortlisting process for this year's awards, narrowing down the longlisted entries to around five entries per category.

All shortlists will be announced on Dezeen next week with the inaugural public vote opening on 14 September.

The public vote will allow readers to choose one entry per category until voting closes on 12 October.

Projects and studios with the highest number of votes in their category will win a special Dezeen Awards 2020 public vote winners' certificate.

Note that the public vote is separate from the main Dezeen Awards programme, where winners are selected by a jury of industry professionals.

Here's a guide to what's happening next:

7-10 September: shortlists published

The shortlisting process has now been finalised by our panel of 75 judges. The shortlists will be published on Dezeen, on our social media channels and in newsletters.

Each shortlisted entry will receive its own page on the Dezeen Awards website and will be published in full on Dezeen.

Architecture shortlist: 7 September
Interiors shortlist: 8 September
Design shortlist: 9 September
Studio shortlist: 10 September

14 September: public vote goes live!

You can start voting for your favourite projects on 14 September. You’ll be able to vote via the public vote landing page or via a link on the shortlist page of the project you want to vote for.

12 October: public vote closes

Readers have until 12 October to vote for their favourite projects.

19 October: All public vote winners announced

Winners will be decided in each category based on the highest number of votes. We will be announcing all public vote winners on Dezeen on 19 October.

Late October

Dezeen Awards winners will be ratified by our master jury, and winners will be announced at the end of October. We’ll be sharing more information about this soon.

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Designers make furniture and fashion products from textiles for Kvadrat's Knit! exhibition

Kvadrat's Knit! exhibition, which forms part of 3 Days of Design, sees 28 designers create a variety of objects upholstered in its Febrik textile range, from sofas and dining tables to a giant squishy ball and whimsical flight suits.

Debuting in Copenhagen during 3 Days of Design as both a physical and digital show, the Knit! project aims to explore the potential of the knitted textiles in Kvadrat's Febrik collection.

Curators Anniina Koivu, Jeffrey Bernett, Johanna Agerman Ross, Njusja de Gier and Renee Merckx selected 28 designers to take part who have demonstrated "curiosity in experimenting with materials, form and colour".

This includes London-based designer Yinka Ilori, Dutch design firm Studio Truly Truly and Swedish design collective Malmö Upcycling Service.

Yinka Ilori's seating system is made from layers of upholstered ply-board

Ilori's creation is a seating system called A Trifle of Colour, which looks at the chair as a "social tool". Made from multiple-layered sheets of ply-board that are individually upholstered in Kvadrat Febrik's Sprinkles textile, the chair-bench hybrid features removable and adjustable backrests.

Other designers who opted for seating design include Ana Kraš, who created the Ofset Chair from six quadrilateral planes, and Ania Jaworska, who designed structured chairs intercepted with geometric cushions.

Adam Goodrum's interlocking sofas take cues from Victorian love seats

Some creatives, such as Australian designer Adam Goodrum and New York-based practice Visibility, made circular seating systems.

While Goodrum's interlocking sofas take cues from Victorian love seats, Visibility created a circular seating structure positioned around a central table based on traditional Middle Eastern dining.

Paola Sakr made a series of tableware from textile moulds

Other figures went for more unconventional designs, including Lebanese designer Paola Sakr, who made a series of tableware from textile moulds, and Venice-based design practice Zaven, which used the textiles to create a series of utopian "flight suits".

Zaven's suit designs are informed by the image of a squirrel jumping from trees, an airplane flying through the sky and an astronaut floating in space.

Marie Sloth Rousing's conceptual garments can be worn by objects and humans

Various designers used the Febrik textiles to make fashion garments. Ayzit Bostan, for example, used the fabric to make long dresses, cropped hoodies, kimono coats and layered skirts.

Copenhagen-based Marie Sloth Rousing, on the other hand, created conceptual garments that combine the elements of both a chair cover and a shirt, and can be worn by both objects and people.

Objects of Common Interest designed a series of upholstered columns

New York- and Thessaloniki-based studio Objects of Common Interest designed a series of fabric-clad fluted columns, which are informed by industrial circular knitting machines.

Each pillar is comprised of stacked textile sections that start to spin independently at varying speeds in different directions when approached by viewers.

Michel Charlot used the Kvadrat fabric to create a giant ball

A giant, squishy ball by Swiss industrial designer Michel Charlot was also created as part of the show, as well as a room divider by Malmö Upcycling Service (MUS) and a reclined seat by Studio Truly Truly that features a bulbous cushion supported by a clear glass base.

Fabric surrealism-inspired characters by Benja Harney also feature in the exhibition, alongside a series of blankets by Studio Bertjan Pot that have been hemmed using coloured duct tape and a padded bag strap by Giulia Chéhab.

Other participating designers and studios include Studio Akane Moriyama, Bahraini Danish, Camille Blatrix, The Fabrick Lab, Faysal Tabarrah, Studio Fonta Fonta, Julie Richoz, Kumano, Lim + Lu, Studio Maria Blaisse, Studio Paperform, Raw Color and Shigeki Fujishiro Design.

Ana Kraš designed a series of geometric chairs

The Copenhagen festival, 3 Days of Design, is taking place in the Danish capital from 3 to 5 September 2020. The event was initially due to take place in March this year, but was postponed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Kvadrat recently enlisted fashion designer Raf Simons to create two upholstery fabrics, called Helia and Silas, that boast unusual textures from natural materials including linen, wool and viscose.

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Exhibit Columbus launches online symposium to explore the future of mid-sized cities in the American heartland

3XN unveils cube-shaped office block in central Berlin

Danish architecture studio 3XN has revealed the aptly named Berlin Cube office block alongside the River Spree and the central railway station in German's capital city.

Built on Washingtonplatz in central Berlin, the standalone office block is shaped like a cube with faceted glass facades. It completes a masterplan for the area drawn up by German architect OM Ungers in the mid-1990s.

"The basic idea behind the masterplan was that a solitaire building on the square should contribute with a sculptural gesture and to animate the square," said 3XN partner-in-charge, Torben Østergaard.

"Washingtonplatz is a rather prominent location in Berlin right in front of the main railway station near the River Spree and the chancellor's office, so a stand-alone building here should offer more than rental space for the tenants," Østergaard told Dezeen.

Clad entirely in glass, the cube measures 42.5 metres in all directions. Its facade is faceted with a triangulated relief pattern to create outdoor balconies for the offices on every floor within the block.

"We intentionally challenged the concept of a sculpted cubic architectural body, however in respect of the initial idea; the cube remains recognizable as the overall form," said Østergaard.

"The sculpted form is driven by the idea to add outside terraces on all floors and in all directions," he continued.

"In the end, we hoped for a building that would enter a dialogue with the square, the terraces will do this but moreover, the relief that emerged – and the reflective glazing to emphasise the sculpted body – creates new views of the surroundings in a kaleidoscopic manner that enable totally new readings of the city and life on the square."

The 10-storey office block contains a food market and lobby on the ground floor with nine floors of office space above and a roof terrace at the top of the building.

Although the building is entirely clad in glass, 3XN utilised a double-skin facade, cross ventilation, rooftop solar panels and an automated heating and ventilation system in a bid to prove that glazed buildings can be energy efficient.

According to the studio, Berlin Cube is 25 per cent more energy efficient than well-known green building standards require.

"Cube Berlin refutes the common conception that glazed buildings are unsustainable," said Østergaard. "It does so by providing new answers to the traditional concept of double-skin facades."

"Cube Berlin is pioneering the development of solar control in the outer skin rather than on the inner, this offers more positive effects – manageable temperatures in the cavity imply extended seasons for natural ventilation of the offices while doing all the same things as traditional double skins: protecting the sunscreens, offer generous daylight etc," he continued.

3XN incorporated an intelligent system within the building to manage the internal environment, which will learn over time how to efficiently control the building.

"In Cube Berlin, all the individual systems that all come with a digital interface are all connected in a common platform; the brain," explained Østergaard.

"The connectivity of all systems in one integrated solution enables the exchange of data between systems otherwise operating in isolation," he continued.

"The data produced during everyday operation of access control, lift operation, ventilation systems, cooling systems etc has now been made accessible to the common platform and this is the precondition for providing meaningful feedback to users and facilities management and to generate new cross-system learnings. Over time this platform can be given new elements and features so it can grow to embrace new ideas and requirements."

Copenhagen-based 3XN was founded by Kim Herforth Nielsen, Lars Frank Nielsen and Hans Peter Svendler Nielsen in 1986. The studio recently completed the Olympics headquarters on the shore of Lake Geneva and a large sporting and cultural arena in Copenhagen.

Cube Berlin is longlisted in the business building category of this year's Dezeen Awards. Other buildings in that category include a reception block for Adidas designed by Behnisch Architekten, a brick office in Tehran by Hooba Design Group and a translucent house for a glass company in the Czech Republic.

Photography is by Adam Mørk.

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Project credits:

Architect: 3XN
Architect – subterranean: Maedebach & Redeleit Architekten
Structural engineer: Remmel + Sattler Ingenieurgesellschaft
Facade engineering: DS-Plan
Facade maintenance consultant: TAW Weisse
Digitalisation: CA Immo, Thing-it and Drees & Sommer
Fire engineering: Hhpberlin
Mechanical & electrical engineer: DS-Plan

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Kasiiya Papagayo has tented guest rooms that peek from a tropical forest in Costa Rica

Tent-topped timber platforms form guest rooms in this eco-resort in Costa Rica, which Paris-based studio AW2 completed "without cutting down a single tree and without the use of concrete and nails".

AW2 designed the resort called Kasiiya Papagayo so as not to disturb or damage its site of tree-covered, rocky peninsular overlooking the Gulf of Papagayo.

"From the very beginning, the conservation of the tropical forest has been paramount," AW2 explained. "Our intention throughout the project was not to have minimal impact on the environment, but zero."

To achieve this, the resort is fragmented into 14 guest rooms arranged in clusters across the 123-acre (49-hectare) resort, which the studio likens to a village.

"It is composed on the scale of a village, made up of clusters of tents, densifying the habitat in some areas and then letting nature take full rein in others," it added.

"By having small pockets of life, the healthy interdependency with the ecosystem was prioritised, maintaining the exclusivity/community balance."

Guest rooms are elevated above the ground and designed to be demountable as part of the resort's construction strategy.

"We designed the project in a way that allows us to dismount, remove, pack and leave with no visible trace of any construction," the studio continued.

Locally sourced timber forms the frames and platforms, which are secured to the ground with screw piles that can be removed with little impact to the ground.

Canvas forms the tented roof on top along with the exterior and interior walls.

"Kasiiya Papagayo was completed without cutting down a single tree and without the use of concrete and nails," it added.

The project is completely solar-powered, while other environmental strategies are an on site well that provides water, and the use of electric vehicles.

Each guest suite is accessed by a private pathway and decorated with a series of custom-made furnishings designed by AW2 and manufactured by Colonial in neutral tones to complement the surrounds.

"Inside the tents, the camping mindset continues," the studio said. "The demountable character, both fragile and impermanent, is affirmed everywhere. In terms of materials, local wood was sourced for the structures and interiors."

Photograph by Kenny Viese

Large expanses of glazing wrap around the bedrooms are covered by roll-up blinds – reminiscent of a tent – with glass doors that open onto a wood deck offering views of the exterior.

Woodwork features prominently inside, including exposed timber structure, and bed and chair frames paired with neutral textiles.

Photograph by Kenny Viese

Bathrooms have wooden mirror frames and washstands, with stone basins, and a free-standing metallic tub.

AW2 also designed a beach bar, restaurant, spa and communal spaces for the resort, which encompasses a total of 2,000 square metres.

Completed in November 2018, Kasiiya Papagayo has been longlisted in the hospitality building category of Dezeen Awards 2020.

Other holiday resorts in Costa Rica include a retreat designed by Laboratory Sustaining Design, which includes a waterfall between the outdoor pools stepped down its steep site, and a hotel by Studio Saxe, which is composed of pavilion-like guest rooms stepped down a slope facing the Pacific Ocean.

Photography is by Pucci, unless stated otherwise.

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Project credits:

Architect and interior designer: AW2
Structural engineer: LCM
Tent fabric: Canvas and Tent Manufacturing
Tent structures and fixed furniture: procurement of wood from local Costa Rican wood trading companies
Platforms: timber frame coated in red Brazilian cherry wood

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