SEGD Announces 2025 Global Design Awards Winners; Debuts New Sustainability Recognitions

Kristin Bennani

San Francisco, CA — November 14, 2025 — At the 2025 SEGD Conference Experience in San Francisco, SEGD revealed the winners of the 2025 SEGD Global Design Awards, celebrating design excellence that connects people to place through storytelling, meaning, and impact.

Since 1987, the SEGD Global Design Awards have set the benchmark for experiential design—honoring projects that shape how people engage with the built environment. This year’s program drew 284 entries from 151 firms across 18 countries, including 28 student submissions, with 30 projects selected for awards across seven categories.

2025 Jury Chair Jonathan Alger, Managing Director of C&G Partners (New York City), praised the outstanding caliber and diversity of this year’s submissions.

The caliber of entries this year was extraordinary—across disciplines, scales, and geographies. Judging was intensely competitive, and receiving recognition truly means a project rose to the top of a remarkable field. To every team honored: you are the best of the best. Congratulations.
Jonathan Alger, 2025 SEGD Global Design Awards Jury Chair

For the first time in the program’s nearly four-decade history, SEGD introduced two new sustainability-focused recognitions: the Sustainability Impact Recognition and the Life-Centered Design Award, expanding the definition of design excellence to include ecological responsibility and long-term impact.

“For nearly four decades, the SEGD Global Design Awards have defined design excellence in how we connect people to place through storytelling, meaning, and impact,” said SEGD CEO Cybelle Jones.

“In 2025, we mark the first year sustainability is recognized as a core measure of excellence. Winning projects highlight the breadth of our community—from deeply researched approaches that prove design’s impact beyond beauty, to work that advances equity, sustainability, and a more connected world.”

Reflecting on the significance of these new recognitions, 2025 Sustainable Design Committee Co-Chair Joel Krieger noted that sustainable design represents both practice and purpose:

These awards honor design as a living practice, one that deepens our relationship with the world that sustains us. Sustainable design is a quiet act of care. It reminds us that every creative choice shapes the future we will share.
Joel Krieger, 2025 Sustainable Design Committee Co-Chair
Explore the 2025 Global Design Award Winners

  1. Best of Show: Missouri Botanical Garden Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center by Ayers Saint Gross

  2. Sylvia Harris and Life-Centered Design Award: The Hive by The Urban Conga

2025 Top Honors

Best of Show: Missouri Botanical Garden Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center — Honor Award, Ayers Saint Gross; Client: Missouri Botanical Garden; Location: St. Louis, Missouri.

Sylvia Harris Award & Life-Centered Design Award (new): The Hive — Merit Award, The Urban Conga; Clients: City of Albany, Van Alen Institute; Location: Albany, New York.

2025 Winners by Category

  1. Relish’in Change

  2. History and Machine Learning Fuel Inspiration at Le Visionnaire

Branded Environments

Relish’in Change — Honor Award, IA Interior Architects; Client: Relish Works; Location: Chicago, Illinois.

History and Machine Learning Fuel Inspiration at Le Visionnaire — Merit Award, Local Projects; Client: L’Oréal; Location: Paris, France.

Homefield Kansas City Showcase Center — Merit Award, Populous; Client: Homefield Kansas City; Location: Olathe, Kansas.

The Art of Craft — Merit Award, Asterisk; Client: Netflix; Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico.

University of Nebraska—Lincoln Osborne Legacy Complex — Merit Award, Populous; Client: University of Nebraska; Location: Lincoln, Nebraska.

  1. The People’s House: A White House Experience

  2. Climeworks Visitor Centre

Digital Experiences

The People’s House: A White House Experience — Honor Award, Ralph Appelbaum Associates; Cortina Productions; Client: White House Historical Association; Location: Washington, D.C.

Climeworks Visitor Centre — Merit Award; Sustainability Impact Recognition, Gagarin; Client: Climeworks; Location: Hellisheiði, Iceland.

  1. World Heritage Center

  2. Building Stories

Exhibition

World Heritage Center — Honor Award, G&A; Client: World Heritage Office, City of San Antonio; Location: San Antonio, Texas.

Building Stories — Merit Award, Plus And Greater Than; Client: National Building Museum; Location: Washington, D.C.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology — Merit Award; Sustainability Impact Recognition, C&G Partners, Cornell University; Client: Cornell University; Location: Ithaca, New York.

Designing Motherhood — Merit Award, Studio Matthews; Client: Gates Foundation; Location: Seattle, Washington.

Showtown, Blackpool — Merit Award, Casson Mann; Client: Showtown; Location: Blackpool, United Kingdom.

Top of the Rock — Merit Award, THG Creative; Client: Tishman Speyer; Location: New York, New York.

  1. Easing Pediatric Pain

  2. Emergency and Outpatient Health Center

Placemaking

Missouri Botanical Garden Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center — Best of Show; Honor Award, Ayers Saint Gross; Client: Missouri Botanical Garden; Location: St. Louis, Missouri.

Easing Pediatric Pain: STAD Center at UCSF Benioff Children’s — Honor Award, NBBJ; Client: UCSF Health; Location: San Francisco, California.

Emergency and Outpatient Health Center — Merit Award, Design Studio H2E; Client: Children’s Clinical University Hospital; Location: Riga, Latvia.

The Blinky Climber — Merit Award, Gyroscope Inc.; Client: Florida Children’s Museum; Location: Lakeland, Florida.

  1. Carousel for Companionship

  2. Monticello Burial Ground for Enslaved Persons / Contemplative Site

Public Installation

Carousel for Companionship — Honor Award, Could Be Design; Client: Landmark Columbus Foundation; Location: Columbus, Indiana.

The Hive — Sylvia Harris Award; Life-Centered Design Award; Merit Award, The Urban Conga; Clients: City of Albany, Van Alen Institute; Location: Albany, New York.

Monticello Burial Ground for Enslaved Persons / Contemplative Site — Merit Award, HGA; Client: Thomas Jefferson Foundation; Location: Charlottesville, Virginia.

On Tap: The Columbia Tap Trail — Merit Award; Sustainability Impact Recognition, University of Houston, Graphic Design; Client: Friends of Columbia Tap; Location: Houston, Texas.

Washington School for the Deaf Art Gate — Merit Award, Mayer/Reed, Inc.; Client: Washington School for the Deaf; Location: Vancouver, Washington.

  1. Taiwan Public Pictogram System (TPPS)

  2. Walk Portland

Strategy / Research / Planning

Taiwan Public Pictogram System (TPPS) — Honor Award, Path & Landforms; Clients: MOEA (Industrial Development Administration), TDRI; Location: Taipei City, Taiwan.

Walk Portland — Honor Award; Sustainability Impact Recognition, sparks+sullivan; Clients: Travel Portland, Portland Bureau of Transportation; Location: Portland, Oregon.

Walker Art Center Visitor Experience Research — Honor Award, HGA; Client: Walker Art Center; Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota.

WMATA Digital Wayfinding Manual — Merit Award, Order; W&CO; Client: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority; Location: Washington, D.C.

  1. Forest Reflections

  2. Australia Post Support Centre

Wayfinding

Forest Reflections — Honor Award, Mijksenaar; Client: Government of Flanders; Location: Park Gaasbeek & Groenenberg, Flanders, Belgium.

Australia Post Support Centre — Merit Award; Sustainability Impact Recognition, Diadem; Client: Australia Post; Location: Richmond, Victoria, Australia.

Desa Potato Head — Merit Award; Sustainability Impact Recognition, Studio Ongarato; Client: Potato Head; Location: Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia.

Muskoka Lumber Community Centre — Merit Award, MJMA Architecture & Design; Client: Town of Bracebridge; Location: Muskoka, Ontario, Canada.

Best of Show honorees, Ayers Saint Gross (center), pictured with CEO Cybelle Jones (left) and SEGD Board President Traci Sym (right) and Global Design Awards Presenting Sponsor Mike McCarthy (far right).

Program Sponsors

The 2025 SEGD Global Design Awards are presented by DCL, in partnership with: CRĒO Industrial Arts (Branded Environments Awards); D&P (Exhibition Awards); MGAC (Strategy/Research/Planning Awards); Moss (Sustainability Impact Recognition & Life-Centered Design Award); Peregrine OKB (Digital Awards); Room for Magic (Public Installation Awards); SignAgent (Wayfinding Awards); and S+D Corp (Placemaking Awards).

About SEGD

We are designers of experiences connecting people to place. SEGD is a multidisciplinary community collectively shaping the future of experience design. From architects and graphic designers to technologists and educators, our members work collaboratively to create inclusive, engaging, and meaningful environments. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, SEGD is dedicated to educating, connecting, inspiring, and advocating for the advancement of design practices that enrich the human experience.

Media Contact
Kristin Bennani
Director of Sales & Marketing, SEGD
kristin@segd.org

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