Grands Prix du Design Awards Meadow House “Award of the Year” in Architecture.
by Mark English, AIA | Mark English Architects
In November 2025, I flew to Montreal for a design award ceremony where Meadow House was up against projects from across Canada and beyond. A thousand people in formal dress, nine categories, and a room full of architects I’d never met.
Meadow House won the Grand Prix du Design’s top honor in Architecture in November 2025.
In November 2025, I was invited to Montreal as the recipient of two Gold-level awards at the Grands Prix du Design ceremony. I didn’t know what level beyond Gold we might have won.
We had submitted the Meadow House in two categories: “Prestige House” and “Large Private House” and had been selected as ‘Gold’ winners in each category in the first round.
Meadow House is a recently completed home and guesthouse within the exceptional Santa Lucia Preserve in the Carmel Valley. It is our most uncompromising design to date and is prominently featured in our new Monograph; ‘In Situ – Unique Homes Crafted for California Living’. Both the site and brief paved the way for a challenging and, ultimately, deeply rewarding process.
The brief from our clients – a multigenerational family with business ties to their native Korea – outlined a Californian home with a Korean heart. Exploring these singular influences revealed many similarities, all of which can be seen throughout Meadow House, from the fluidity of indoor-outdoor spaces and deep terraces surrounding parts of the home, to the abundance of natural light that is overt in some places and tempered in others.
The Ceremony took place in Montreal, a city I’d longed to visit.
I’ve always wanted to go to Montreal and had never had the chance. When I arrived, it had started snowing and was cold, bleak, and very European-feeling. I was thrilled to be there. I checked into my hotel late at night and took a walk around the old port area. The next day, I knew the ceremony wasn’t until evening, so I went to visit the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History by the late Dan S. Hanganu and Provencher Roy + Associés.
It is one of the most amazing buildings I’ve seen, and the most amazing part is underground. The founding of Montreal on the site of a native village on the St. Lawrence River is beautifully explained in an exhibit that covers acres beneath the current city. Terraces and buildings are held up structurally so that the archaeology below could be exposed and explained. It really is one of the best examples explaining the founding of a major city through its earliest stages until now, with excellent signage, wayfinding, and exhibits. It’s a great example also of how some countries are happy to invest money in a facility that will not necessarily have broad appeal, but will definitely appeal to people who want to learn.
The Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History reveals the city’s foundation through excavated ruins beneath the modern streetscape.
Structural supports hold up the current city above while allowing visitors to walk among centuries-old foundations.
Later in the evening, as I got dressed for the event, I went to the website again and realized how seriously the awards, jurors, and supporters were taking this. They were going to put on an amazing event with a thousand people from all over Canada and the world, and we were in the midst of it. I was excited to see how our work, especially Meadow House, would stack up in a jury pool of almost all Canadians and some Europeans, in a setting so different from what the host country exhibits. I knew there would be nine categories of design honored, including architecture, interiors, landscape architecture, product design, art & photography, communication, lighting, construction and student work.
The event filled a vast Hall with nearly a thousand design professionals from Canada and the world.
I was a little nervous walking into the event. It was a very formal feeling, very European. Immediately I saw across the room one of my California landscape architect friends, Ive from Shades of Green Landscape Architecture. That was exciting and comforting. She was talking to a French Canadian named Frederic Blanchet, and we became fast friends. Soon it was time to join the event. We were all assigned to tables in a vast room with well-dressed people looking very French. This being Quebec, the main language was French with translations to English.
Landscape Architect Ive of Shades of Green was a welcome familiar face among the French Canadian crowd.
At the end of a very long evening, we were honored to win not only two “Grand Winner” awards for “Large Private House” and “Prestige House”, but as the very last category of the night, we won “Award of the Year” in architecture! It’s a moment I’ll never forget.
Accepting the “Grand Winner” and “Award of the Year” for best overall project in Architecture.
As I accepted the award, I’d never felt so comfortable being up in front of that many people. I expressed the following hope: “I’m thrilled and honored to have won this award. I would never have expected it, but I do have another wish now. I wish that and hope that winning this award will help me with my future application for Canadian citizenship.”
The Award itself, presented at the end of the ceremony.
This was a lot of fun because the people who only spoke English started clapping and cheering right away, and after a five-second translation delay, the French speakers followed!
Mark English, AIA
04. Apr, 2026
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