Nature of Award : To recognise and reward multi-disciplinary diversity of the culture of architecture
Eligibility : Artist, engineer, designer, academic, architect, writer, curator, client
Award : Certificate, £10,000
Date for Applications : March
Date for Submissions : June
Date for Announcement : October
Submission Requirements : Application form, portfolio of work
Entry Fee : None

For the promotion of Architecture, instituted by Queen Victoria in 1848, conferred annually by the Sovereign.
Given in recognition of a lifetime's work, the Royal Gold Medal is approved personally by Her Majesty the Queen and is given annually to a person or group of people whose influence on architecture has had a truly international effect. The award is for a body of work, rather than for one building or for an architect who is currently fashionable. Previous winners include Le Corbusier (1953), Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1925), Frank Gehry (2000) and Archigram (2002).

Nominations from : Corporate members of the RIBA
Nature of Award : For work of high merit which has promoted, either directly or indirectly, the advancement of Architecture
Eligibility : Distinguished architect, group of architects, person or group
Award : Gold Medal
Date for Applications : July
Date for Submissions : September
Date for Announcement : June
Submission Requirements : Nomination and supporting statement
Entry Fee : None
The Medal, which is widely perceived to be the most prestigious architectural prize in the world, is awarded not for a single building but for a body of work
The German architect and engineer, Frei Otto, whose pioneering tensile structures and grid shells have inspired architects such as Richard Rogers, Michael Hopkins and Ted Cullinan, has been awarded the 2005 Royal Gold Medal.

The awards were the biggest and most important annual global recognition of architectural excellence. Organised by World Architecture magazine they identify the best buildings in the world split into nine regions, with five buildings shortlisted for each region.
From these buildings we then reward the best buildings by category and the best from each of our regions. We also then highlight the best building of all.
The top prize is worth US$30,000

The World Habitat Awards were initiated in 1985 as part of the Building and Social Housing Foundation's contribution to the United Nations International Year of Shelter for the Homeless in 1987. The principle objective of the international year was for every nation to draw up strategies, policies and programmes that would enable practical and attainable improvements to be made in the shelter and neighbourhoods of all poor and disadvantaged people by the year 2000.
The World Habitat Awards were initiated in order to identify innovative and successful human settlement projects throughout the world which could be replicated elsewhere. Projects are sought which offer sustainable futures to residents and which provide practical and imaginative solutions to current housing problems in developed and developing countries. In both instances projects are sought which view the solution of housing problems from a broad perspective and address themselves to the related problems of unemployment, diminishing energy resources and a sustainable future, in addition to the housing problem.
Every year the competition has attracted quality, innovative projects, capable of replication in either the developed or developing world. To date winning projects have been identified in Turkey, India, Malawi, United Kingdom, Sri Lanka, United States of America, Poland, Egypt, Switzerland, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Japan, Venezuela, The Czech Republic, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Germany, China, Denmark, Namibia, Canada, Ecuador, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Bangladesh.
Each year two cash awards of £10,000 and individually designed and crafted silver trophies are presented to the winners of the competition on World Habitat Day. Assessors of the Awards include the Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements and the Rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo.
Trophies
The solid sterling silver trophies presented annually to the World Habitat Award winners are individually crafted by students of the 3D Design (Metalsmithing and Jewellery) within the School of Design and Manufacture at Leicester De Montfort University in the United Kingdom.
Each year a competition is held for all students within the institute to find the two best designs for the trophy, which must be predominantly crafted in solid silver and contain the symbol, in some form, of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless. Other materials such as polished or stained wood and glass are used in addition to the solid sterling silver and an excellent range of hand-crafted trophies have resulted.