The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture is an international architecture award of high standing that honors architects with outstanding contributions to promoting architecture for people, communities and the planet.

Doan Thanh Ha received the 2026 award alongside five other international architects, namely Ye Man of China; Loreta Castro Reguera and José Pablo Ambrosi of Mexico; Amelia Tavella of France; and Andreas Kipar of Germany/Italy.

He was recognized for a group of projects, including Son Lap School in Cao Bang, a site without electricity, with scarce water and no mobile signal; a house combining architecture and agriculture in Mao Khe, Quang Ninh province; a cave house on the outskirts of Hanoi; S Space in former Ha Nam province; and the Tile Space project in Dong Anh, Hanoi.

Doan Thanh Ha is the second Vietnamese architect to receive the award. In 2025, Hoang Thuc Hao became the first Vietnamese recipient.

Upon addressing the award ceremony held on the evening of April 15 in Turkey, he said he has always placed emphasis on three elements: culture, architecture and nature.

His projects are designed on the principle that architecture must take responsibility for the natural environment as well as the cultural and social environment, and that nature is for humans to live with, not to conquer, he added.

Doan Thanh Ha is also the first Vietnamese architect to win the Turgut Cansever Award 2020, endorsed by the International Union of Architects, which recognizes proposals reflecting the design principles of Turgut Cansever, the only architect in the world to have won the Aga Khan Award three times. In addition, Ha was named Architect of the Year at the Ashui Awards in 2018.

Founded in 2006 by architect and researcher Jana Revedin, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture annually honors five architects, urban planners or landscape architects whose work indicates a responsible, creative and dedicated approach to sustainability.

The award highlights initiatives that make concrete contributions to the transformation of the construction environment in response to major contemporary social, environmental and cultural challenges.

Vietnamese students win two international architecture prizes

VOV.VN - A group of students from Vietnamese-German University in Ho Chi Minh City has won two prizes in the student category of the Architecture MasterPrize (AMP) in the United States, outperforming thousands of entries from 72 countries.