The Dead Prize: A new award to recognize poorly designed buildings

If the film industry has its Razzie awards, architecture will have its Dead Prize, created by Architecture for Humanity co-founder Cameron Sinclair to recognize projects that actively harm the planet.

Fast Company reports that the prize will bring attention to the failures of engineers, architects, and designers whose buildings have proved catastrophic for the environment.

“We don’t believe in being negative,” the Dead Prize website says. “Our focus is to discover what the benchmark is to design against or getting a better understanding of how a design failed or was intentionally harmful.” In fact, the organization says that if it has the funding, the award will include a design solution for the “winning” design’s problem.

Nominees are selected by the public via Twitter. All nominations are due November 1, 2014, after which a jury from a variety of fields will judge projects and firms deemed worthy of a Dead Prize–designs that “are helping shorten our existence on this planet.”