What do awards mean? In the last couple of years, I've been on a lot of juries. I’ve come to realise that it’s getting harder and harder to judge fairly, partly because contexts vary so radically. To be truly cognizant of other contexts, especially when thinking about representation and equity, you have to go deeper than what a building looks like or what its function is or how it was procured. Increasingly, I'm finding the competitive angle of competitions, awards and prizes quite difficult to assess and I have a feeling that that's also reflected in Gen Z’s approach. That aspect of continuously pitting people against each other is somehow at odds with their ethos. At the same time, though, I've had some really interesting conversations around the point of awards and juries and I think people do understand that the cultural capital that you get from an award or a prize is invaluable.
