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The Rice School of Architecture is proud to announce that TEN, operating between Belgrade and Zurich, has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Spotlight Award. This prestigious honor recognizes the design excellence and innovative spirit demonstrated by emerging professionals in architecture and design.
TEN produces building prototypes, urban propositions, algorithmic design investigations, and material research in collaboration with a broad network of partners, institutions, and clients. The practice treats research, experimentation, and collaboration as core drivers of design. Each project is conceived as an evolving prototype. TEN’s approach challenges the traditional notion that architecture is the pursuit of a finished project and instead leverages an open-ended process of experimentation that seeks new spatial configurations, tectonic assemblages, and social relationships. Recent projects include Avala House (Belgrade, Serbia, 2020), House for Five Women (Gradacac, Bosnia, 2021), 500 Year Tower (Bern, Switzerland, 2021), and “Nobody Leaves the Party”/Recypark Jette (Brussels, Belgium, 2025).
“At a time when our professional discipline is increasingly defined by rigid specialization, TEN offers a provocative alternative,” said Igor Marjanović, William Ward Watkin Dean of the Rice School of Architecture. “By operating as a fluid, interdependent collective, TEN demonstrates that architecture is always a product of collaboration. Their work reminds us that design innovation is strongest when we allow different voices and formats—from material research to algorithmic experiments—to play in concert with one another.”
The Spotlight Award honors architects who demonstrate extraordinary design curiosity and excellence within the first fifteen years of their practice. Previous recipients include Sou Fujimoto (2010), Pezo Von Ellrichshausen (2012), fala atelier (2020), and Material Cultures (2025). The 2026 Spotlight Award nomination and jury process was led by a distinguished panel of faculty from the Rice School of Architecture: Gus Sessions Wortham Professor Albert Pope; Assistant Professor and Director of the Rice Building Workshop Georgina Baronian (Spotlight Jury Chair); Harry K. & Albert K. Smith Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Mónica Rivera; and Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Academic Affairs Reto Geiser.
“TEN’s architects are redefining design authorship by proposing a new form of evolving team constellations that allow the studio to operate across contexts and scales,” Geiser stated. “Through its projects, TEN tackles some of the most pressing issues of contemporary architecture by connecting sustainability to aesthetics, adaptability to tectonics, and affordability to form.”
The 2026 Spotlight Award will be presented at the Rice School of Architecture, Farish Gallery, MD Anderson Hall, on April 13 at 6pm, after which Ognjen Krašna and Nemanja Zimonjić will give a lecture on their work titled “Practice as Prototype.” We invite the public to join us for this event celebrating the achievements of TEN and its transformative approach to architecture and the built environment.
About the Spotlight Award
The Spotlight Award is an annual recognition for architects who have demonstrated outstanding design potential early in their careers. It was established in 2009 under the leadership of Lonnie Hoogeboom, with John J. Casbarian, Carlos Jiménez, and Rafael Longoria. The award is by invitation only and is determined by a committee composed of architects, academics, and design practitioners from around the world. This program is made possible through the generous support of the Betty R. and George F. Pierce Jr., FAIA, Fund; the William B. Coleman Jr. Colloquium Fund for Architecture; and the Wm. W. Caudill Lecture Series Fund.
About The Rice School of Architecture
The Rice School of Architecture is an international center of design research, experimentation, and debate that engages and reconstructs our world in the most imaginative and holistic ways. We educate the next generation of architects to stand at the forefront of our discipline and to embody the dual role of public intellectual and agile practitioner as they design for a world in flux.
To learn more about the Rice School of Architecture, visit arch.rice.edu. © 2026 Rice University, School of Architecture, 6100 Main Street MS–50, Houston, Texas 77005.
