Studio Toggle, an architecture office from Kuwait, has won big at the prestigious A+ International Architecture awards presented by the popular Architizer magazine. The office, led by Architects Hend Almatrouk and Gijo Paul George, won the coveted "Popular Choice Award" in the "Best Young Firm" category, edging out four other finalists from the UK and China, chosen out of 5000+ nominations from 100+ countries.
Studio Toggle also won the prestigious "Juror's Choice Award" in the "Best Architecture Office in the Middle East and Africa" category. The other four finalists included two offices from Iran, and two from Israel.
Other winners include:
Zaha Hadid Architects (Jurors' Choice, Best Large Architecture Firm)
AGi Architects (Jurors' Choice, Cultural-Pavillion Design Category)
Montalba Architects (Popular Choice, Best Architecture Firm in North America)
NADAAA (Jurors' Choice, Best Public Projects Architecture Firm)
Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM) (Popular Choice, Best Sustainable Architecture Firm)
Akira Koyama (Jurors' Choice, Best Architecture Firm in Asia)
Studio Toggle and AGi Architects are, thus far, the only Kuwaiti architecture offices to win this prestigious award, with Studio Toggle being the first to win in 2020 for its project, Khat, located in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia.
About Architizer A+ Awards
The Architizer A+Awards is the largest awards program in the world, with an audience of more than 400 million subscribers, promoting and celebrating the year's best architecture and spaces. Its mission is to nurture the appreciation of meaningful architecture worldwide, and to champion those designers that are integral to bringing great buildings to life. 2022 is the 10th Anniversary of this prestigious award, whose previous winners include Zaha Hadid Architects, Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM), Bjarke Ingels Group, etc.
This year's winners were chosen by a jury that included Patrik Schumacher: Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects; Bjarke Ingels: Founding Principal of BIG; Joe Gebbia: Co-Founder of Airbnb; Monica Ponce de Leon: Dean of Princeton University School of Architecture; and Mohsen Mostafavi: Dean of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, among others.
About Studio Toggle
Upon graduating from the University of Applied Arts (Die Angewandte) in Vienna, Austria, architects Hend Almatrouk and Gijo Paul George founded Studio Toggle in 2012. Although relatively new, Studio Toggle has quickly emerged as one of the Middle East's most critically acclaimed architecture offices. The firm has won multiple international and regional awards, and its projects are regularly published in books and magazines worldwide. In 2020, Studio Toggle gained international recognition as winner of an Architizer A+ Award for its project, Khat. It gathered more international acclaim in 2021 by winning two American Institute of Architects International Merit Awards.
In 2016, Studio Toggle opened a branch in Porto, Portugal, and in 2021, another branch in Bangalore, India.
