ArchDaily is proud to announce the 2020 Young Practices selection. This premier edition highlights emerging offices that are providing innovative approaches, proposals, and solutions to some of the main challenges Humankind is facing right now. From climate crisis to racial and gender issues. From technological disruption to social cohesion. These challenges are shaping the evolution of architecture, leading the discipline towards a new society and a new economy.

Chosen from over 350 submissions from 72 countries and 215 cities, all over the world, the selected firms reflect the sequential changes architecture has been navigating through over the last twenty years, with the rise and latter consolidation of new technologies, tools, formats, topics, scales, and interdisciplinary approaches.

The emergence of the Internet has led towards a disruptive decentralization of architecture production and discussion. Moreover, it has prompted new languages to express our ideas through images, photo essays, critical writing, visualization tools, multimedia platforms, and social media networks. By requesting a website link, an Instagram account, and a description along with a portfolio, the jury could understand how these young practices are conveying their message through different media. A photography essay can’t be literally extrapolated to a physical model without having in mind the format. Neither an Instagram post into a Ph.D. thesis. The same way a book is not just a sum of articles.

Nevertheless, even if some practices might have an amazing body of work, their statement helps to understand what they stand for and what they are working towards. The statement then fits any scale, any context, any exploration, any investigation, any built project. Not the other way around.

Even though we face global challenges that require global efforts, the selected offices understand the magnitude of their interventions: common issues, complex challenges, diverse approaches. From China to Lebanon to the United States to Brazil, we are proud of how diverse the selection is. However, one of our challenges for the next edition is to promote even more applications from Africa.

As a sign of what the century awaits from architects and designers, we have included an architects-led startup among the selected firms. These offices introduce new ways of practicing, by understanding architecture as both a toolkit and a methodology rather than just a job description. Nevertheless, for the 2021 edition, we look forward to receiving more submissions related to architectural theory, critical writing, media, and technology field.