Architecture

Call for entries to AHEAD Middle East and Africa awards 2018

Dezeen promotion: architects and designers working across the Middle East and Africas are invited to submit their hotel projects to this year’s AHEAD MEA awards.

AHEAD MEA 2018 call for entries
Last year’s AHEAD MEA winners ceremony was held at the W Dubai

The Awards for Hospitality Experience and Design (AHEAD) recognises outstanding hotel design from around the world, through a series of heats in four regions: the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

AHEAD MEA will look at hospitality projects from anywhere in the Middle East and Africa that have been opened or reopened between January 2017 and February 2018.

AHEAD MEA 2018 call for entries
The Four Seasons Dubai International Financial Centre took home the Hotel of the Year award in 2017

Submitted projects will be split into a range of categories: Bar, Club and Lounge; Event Spaces, Guestrooms; Hotel Renovation and Restoration; Landscaping and Outdoor Spaces; Lobby and Public Spaces; Lodges and Tented Camps; Resort Hotel; Restaurant, Spa and Wellness; Suite; Urban Hotel – Conversion; Urban Hotel – Newbuild; Visual Identity of the Year; New Concept of the Year, and the AHEAD Hotel of the Year Award.

Entries will be judged by a panel of expert hoteliers, architects, interior designers and industry commentators. The team will be headed by Marc Dardenne, chief operating officer of high-end hotel chain Jumeirah Group.

AHEAD MEA 2018 call for entries
Last year, the Seychelles’ Six Senses Zil Paysan resort won in the Landscape and Outdoor Spaces and the Suites categories

Winners will then be announced at an awards ceremony in Dubai in November, coinciding with the city’s design week.

Last year, The Four Seasons Hotel Dubai International Financial Centre scooped the Hotel of the Year title. It was commended for bringing a “genuinely new sense of intimate luxury” to the city’s hospitality industry.

Other winners from 2017 included the Studio RHE-designed Six Senses Zil Payson resort in the Seychelles, which has guest suites hidden amongst surrounding vegetation, and Botswana’s Belmond Eagle Island Lodge, which sits on a UNESCO World Heritage site.

AHEAD MEA 2018 call for entries
The Belmond Eagle Island Lodge in Botswana was also one of last year’s winners

Entry costs 1120 AED (approximately £217) and all additional entries cost 560 (approximately £109).

The deadline for entering is 30 April 2018, with shortlisted projects set to be revealed on 29 June.

The Middle East and Africa winners will then go on to contend in AHEAD’s 2019 Global Biennale, going head-to-head with champions from other regions to claim worldwide titles.

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