Brown Sugar Factory / DnA. Image © Wang Ziling
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https://www.archdaily.com/1034951/xu-tiantian-receives-the-2026-charlotte-perriand-award
The Créateurs Design Awards (CDA) announced Xu Tiantian, Founder and Principal Architect of DnA_Design and Architecture, as the recipient of the 2026 edition of Le Prix Charlotte Perriand. The award celebrates architects whose work embodies innovation, social responsibility, and a deep engagement with community and place. The architect was recognized for her transformative work bridging urban and rural communities through innovative design interventions. Her approach to architecture was acknowledged as a tool for cultural preservation and rural revitalization, making her an exemplary recipient of this honor, previously awarded to prominent architects such as Frida Escobedo, Jeanne Gang, Kazuyo Sejima, and Ryue Nishizawa.
Xu Tiantian. Image Courtesy of Le Prix Charlotte Perriand
Le Prix Charlotte Perriand honors architects who embody the spirit of Charlotte Perriand’s legacy: a commitment to innovation, social responsibility, and design that serves humanity. The award recognizes practitioners whose work transcends aesthetic achievement to create meaningful impact on communities and the built environment. It is bestowed by the Créateurs Design Awards, a global peer-to-peer recognition program celebrating excellence in architecture, design, interior design, photography, journalism, digital art, curation, and landscape architecture. With over 300 jurors across 55 countries, the CDA has honored creatives such as Tadao Ando, Virgil Abloh, and Norman Foster.
Jinyun Quarries / DnA. Image © Wang Ziling
Huiming Tea Space / DnA. Image © Wang Ziling
Xu Tiantian is the founder and principal architect of DnA_Design and Architecture. She holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Architecture from Tsinghua University. Since founding DnA in the early 2000s, she has focused on projects that engage local communities, cultural heritage, and the landscape, integrating architecture into existing social and ecological systems to create interventions that strengthen rather than disrupt. Beyond her practice, Xu Tiantian is also a visiting professor at several institutions, including Yale University, Tsinghua University, the University of Hong Kong, and the Università della Svizzera Italiana in Mendrisio. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as MoMA (New York), the Venice Biennale, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA).
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The award recognizes her practice as “rooted in community and place.” In 2014, she introduced her Architectural Acupuncture approach in Songyang County, Zhejiang Province. This methodology applies precise, small-scale interventions to underutilized spaces, aiming to revitalize local economies, preserve heritage, and reinforce community identity. The approach has been acknowledged by UN-Habitat as a model for strengthening urban-rural linkages and has influenced global discourse on sustainable rural development. The recognition will be presented during a ceremony on January 17, 2026, at the Shangri-La Paris. Submissions for the Créateurs Design Awards are open until November 23, 2025, for works completed between April 2024 and November 2025 in the categories of Architecture, Design, Interior Design, Photography, Journalism, Digital Art, Curation, and, for the first time, Landscape Architecture.
Bamboo Theatre / DnA. Image © Wang Ziling
Xu Tiantian embodies Le Prix Charlotte Perriand and what it stands for with her deep grounding and appreciation for the local communities and cities she is designing within. She is reshaping rural landscapes in China in a way that is shifting the cultural dialogue, and we are excited to celebrate her work through our global community. – Meredith Xavier, Co-Founder of the Créateurs Design Association
Shimen Bridge / DnA. Image © Wang Ziling
Xu Tiantian’s previous recognitions include the 2022 Swiss Architectural Award, the 2023 Berlin Art Prize (Architecture), the Marcus Prize, the UNESCO Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, the Holcim Gold Award for Asia-Pacific, and the 2025 Wolf Prize for Architecture. In 2024, she was elected a member of the Akademie der Künste (ADK) in Berlin. She also participated in the “Beyond the Prize” discussion forum held in Venice during the opening week of the Venice Biennale, where a consortium of six major architecture awards reflected on the role, relevance, and future potential of architecture awards amid pressing social and environmental challenges. Other recent women in architecture receiving international recognition include the Indian office ReSa Architects, winners of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale Début Award 2025, and Vietnamese architect Trần Thị Ngụ Ngôn, recipient of the Diversity in Architecture (DIVIA) Award 2025.