There were 343 submissions from 41 countries to this year’s DETAIL Prize, an award for buildings with technically innovative details and outstanding overall design. DETAIL’s editorial board nominated 13 projects. Then a panel of judges selected the following works.

Dignified simplicity pervades this small school for migrant children in Thailand, near the border to Myanmar, designed by a.gor.a architects. The architects planned and realized the building in just a few short weeks. In their sustainable and cost-effecitve approach they worked with the materials that were available on site: clay bricks, bamboo and eucalyptus. The individual structures are also simple: each classroom occupies a “house” of its own. Yet this directness creates an astonishing variety of spaces. This project – well designed, simple, sustainable, and, above all, socially responsible – demonstrates what architecture is capable of.

A sixty-year old disused dry dock serves as the site of the Maritime Museum of Denmark designed by BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group. It is the high quality of the details that makes the building seem to almost disappear. Although it sometimes seems to dissolve into reflections: the glass supports, chain-suspended components, and timber planks used in the floors manage to transform the architecture into part of the exhibition. And this is not just noteworthy, it’s also definitely worth the trip.