The 2026 winners of two key recognitions celebrating women’s influence on architecture and the built environment have been revealed as part of this year’s W Awards program. The honors go to Swiss architect Barbara Buser and British artist-curator Lubaina Himid. These awards underline contributions both within architectural practice and from adjacent creative fields that shape how spaces are imagined and experienced.
Jane Drew Prize 2026 – Barbara Buser
The 2026 Jane Drew Prize has been awarded to Barbara Buser, a Swiss architect and urban planner recognized for her longstanding work in circular construction and material reuse. Barbara Buser grew up in Basel, Switzerland. In 1996, together with her partner Eric Honegger, she established Bauteilbörse, Switzerland’s first center dedicated to recycling building materials.
Alongside Honegger and other collaborators, Buser helped found several ventures, including the architecture firm Baubüro In Situ, the urban planning practice Denkstatt Sàrl, and Unterdessen, an initiative that encourages temporary use of vacant private properties.
In 2001, she launched Zirkular, a platform that collects and catalogs reusable building components from demolitions and donors across Switzerland, making them available for use in new construction projects. The Jane Drew Prize is given annually to a woman architect whose career and commitment to design excellence have helped raise the profile of women in architecture globally. It is named after Jane Drew, the English modernist architect and advocate for women in the profession.
Buser has built her reputation around sustainability and reuse. Her work with reuse networks and platforms that catalog reusable components positions her as a leader in circular construction practices, a sector focused on reducing waste and environmental impact in building processes. Her recognition this year reflects both her influence in sustainable design and her broader impact on architectural culture.
Ada Louise Huxtable Award 2026 – Lubaina Himid
The Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture in 2026 goes to Lubaina Himid, a British artist and curator whose work has intersected deeply with spatial and cultural discourse. Named after Ada Louise Huxtable, the influential American architecture critic who championed thoughtful engagement with the built environment, this award highlights contributions to architecture from fields adjacent to design practice.
Himid is best known for her role in the British Black Arts Movement of the 1980s and her continued artistic practice that foregrounds overlooked histories and identities in public space. Her career spans major exhibitions, curatorial projects, and academic work. While not an architect-designer in the traditional sense, her art and curatorial work interrogate spatial narratives and how people inhabit environments, a perspective that has enriched architectural culture and criticism. Her award this year spotlights this broader influence on how built spaces are understood and socially framed.
Naming the Money (2004) is a large-scale installation that brings forward the overlooked histories of Black individuals in European royal courts. Through an arranged spatial setting, the work immerses visitors in a collective narrative, using placement, scale, and movement to shape how the story is read and experienced. It is often referenced in discussions around exhibition design and the role of architecture in framing historical interpretation.
Several projects place art directly into civic and educational buildings, challenging whose histories are represented in shared spaces. The Ada Louise Huxtable Award jury recognized Himid for expanding architectural discourse beyond buildings, addressing how space carries cultural, political, and historical meaning.
Both prizes form part of the annual W Awards, which celebrate excellence and influence by women and those impacting architectural discourse. The awards span categories such as design practice, research, criticism, and broader cultural contributions to the built environment.
Past winners of the Jane Drew Prize include high-profile figures such as Anne Lacaton (2025), Kazuyo Sejima (2023), and Yasmeen Lari (2020), showing the award’s lineage of recognizing impactful, career-long contributions to architecture.
