The independent Master Jury has chosen seven winners to share the $1 million award.
Award honours groundbreaking architecture shaping a sustainable future

Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, 2 September 2025 – The independent Master Jury of the 16th Award Cycle (2023-2025) has selected seven winners after considering on-site reviews of shortlisted projects that were announced in June. The recipients explore architecture’s capacity to serve as a catalyst for pluralism, community resilience, social transformation, cultural dialogue and climate-responsive design. They will share the $1 million award, one of the largest in architecture.

Recipients of the 2025 Aga Khan Award for Architecture are:

Bangladesh
Khudi⦁     Bari, in various locations, by Marina Tabassum Architects – a replicable solution built with bamboo and steel for displaced communities affected by climatic and geographic changes. The Jury recognised the project’s deep ecological framing, contributing to the global advancement of bamboo as a material.

China
West ⦁    Wusutu⦁     Village Community Centre, in Hohhot, by Inner Mongolian Grand Architecture Design Co., Ltd – a centre built from reclaimed bricks that provides social and cultural spaces for residents and artists, while addressing the cultural needs of the local multi-ethnic community, including Hui Muslims. The Jury noted that the project generates a valuable shared and inclusive communal microcosm within a rural human macrocosm.

Egypt
Revitalisation of Historic ⦁    Esna, by Takween Integrated Community Development – a project that addresses cultural tourism challenges through physical interventions, socioeconomic initiatives and innovative urban strategies, transforming a neglected site into a prospering historic city. The Jury acknowledged the ways the project is stimulating a historic urban metabolism to cope with the contemporary challenge of improving human conditions.

Iran
Majara⦁     Residence and Community Redevelopment, in Hormuz Island, by ZAV Architects – a colourful complex whose domes reflect the rainbow island's ochre-rich soils, providing sustainable accommodations for tourists who visit the unique landscape of Hormuz Island. The Jury described the project as a vibrant archipelago of varying programmes that serve to incrementally build an alternative tourism economy.

Jahad Metro Plaza, in Tehran, by KA Architecture Studio – a once dilapidated station transformed into a vibrant urban node for pedestrians. The Jury highlighted the use of local handmade brick as strengthening the connection with Iran’s rich architectural heritage, while its warm subtle texture emphasises the station’s status as a new urban monument.

Pakistan
Vision Pakistan, in Islamabad, by DB Studios – a multistorey facility boasting joyful facades inspired by Pakistani and Arab craft, while housing a charity that aims to empower disadvantaged youth through vocational training. The Jury noted that the building not only contains a new type of education, but is full of light, spatially interesting and economically efficient.

Palestine
Wonder Cabinet, in Bethlehem, by AAU Anastas – a multipurpose, non-profit exhibition and production space built with the input of local artisans and contractors, to become a key hub for craft, design, innovation and learning. The Jury found that the building provides a model for an architecture of connection, rooted in contemporary expressions of national identity, and asserts the importance of cultural production as a means of resistance.

This 16th cycle’s prize-giving ceremony will be held at the Toktogul Satylganov Kyrgyz National Philharmonic in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic on 15 September. The Award will not only reward architects, but also municipalities, builders, clients, master artisans and engineers who have played important roles in the projects.

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA)
“Inspiring younger generations to build with environmental care, knowledge and empathy is among the greatest aims of this Award. Architecture today must engage with the climate crisis, enhance education and nourish our shared humanity. Through it, we plant seeds of optimism – quiet acts of resilience that grow into spaces of belonging, where the future may thrive in dignity and hope.”
- His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan V, AKAA Steering Committee Chair

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established in 1977 by His late Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, to identify and encourage building concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of communities in which Muslims have a significant presence. The Award’s selection process emphasises architecture that not only provides for people’s physical, social and economic needs, but that also stimulates and responds to their cultural aspirations. In the past 16 triennial cycles of the Award, 136 projects have been awarded and nearly 10,000 building projects documented.
“Architecture can – and must – be a catalyst for hope, shaping not only the spaces we inhabit but the futures we imagine. In an age defined by climate crisis, resource inequality and rapid urbanisation, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture celebrates projects that unite society, sustainability and pluralism to empower a more harmonious and resilient world,” said Farrokh Derakhshani, Director of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

For more information, please contact:

Nadia Siméon, Deputy Director, Aga Khan Award for Architecture
akaa@akdn.org

Optimism and Architecture, edited by Lesley Lokko, will be published by ArchiTangle in September 2025. It presents the awarded and shortlisted projects for the 2025 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Through essays and conversations, this volume examines how architecture can reinvigorate tradition through innovation, connect local practices with global conversations, and create inclusive spaces where diverse cultures and histories converge. 

NOTES
AKAA is a programme of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). Founded and guided by His Late Highness Karim Aga Khan IV, AKDN works in 30 countries to improve the quality of life and to create opportunity for people of all faiths and origins. Its agencies operate over 1,000 programmes and institutions – some more than a century old. The Network’s approach to development spans a range of cultural, social, economic and environmental endeavours. The mandates of its agencies include education and health, agriculture and food security, micro-finance, human habitat, crisis response and disaster reduction, protection of the environment, art, music, architecture, urban planning and conservation, and cultural heritage and preservation. AKDN employs approximately 96,000 people, the majority of whom are based in developing countries. Its annual expenditures for non-profit development activities are approximately $1 billion.