Entries are now open for Interior of the Year 2026.
The Interior of the Year awards celebrate and showcase New Zealand’s best interior architecture and design across 10 categories spanning residential and commercial work.
The Supreme Winner, named Interior of the Year 2026, receives a prize valued at $10,000 including a cinematic video package, a cash component and media value across Nook Publishing’s print and digital brands, while all category winners receive a prize package valued at $8,000.
All winners will be published in the August issues of Architecture Aotearoa or HOME, and featured across all digital channels ensuring your work is seen by more than one million people in New Zealand — and around the world.
You may enter as many projects as you like. Each project is considered on its own merits, with the jury looking for work that demonstrates excellence, innovation, clarity of concept, and material intelligence while delivering a lasting contribution to the interior landscape of Aotearoa.
Entries close at 5pm, Friday, 5 June 2026.
For each project submitted, please include:
- A maximum of 200 words describing the project
- A maximum of 12 high-resolution photos, including a variety of interior and exterior aspects with range of perspectives (please send these as individual images rather than a PDF of images for ease of viewing).
- Simplified plans (please supply as a PDF)
Entry fees are as follows:
- Single entry $109
- Two or more entries $99 per entry
- Emerging designer entries $79
All entrants must be available in person during the week of 15-19 June 2026 to present their project to the jury in Auckland.
Entry Guidelines
Please ensure your project description is carefully considered and addresses the following:
The Brief
Outline the project parameters and context — the client’s requirements, site conditions, constraints and opportunities. This should establish the framework within which the project was conceived.
Design Intent
Articulate the underlying idea that drives the work. Describe how the spatial strategy, material selection and formal decisions respond to the brief, and how the project resolves function, experience and atmosphere.
Innovation
Identify what advances the project beyond the expected. This may include material experimentation, technical resolution, sustainability, or a new approach to programme, detailing or construction — moments where the design demonstrates excellence.
Emerging Designer Entries
Emerging Designer entries are open to design professionals who have spent seven years or less in the industry. All project submissions in this category must clearly outline the entrant’s specific role and individual contributions to the project entered.
Interior of the Year 2026 | Entry Form
Terms and Conditions
- Instructions on how to enter form part of the terms and conditions of entry. Entry into the Interior of the Year promotion is deemed acceptance of these terms and conditions.
- The award is open to anyone with a project that has been completed recently in New Zealand.
- Entries to the award open on 2 May 2026 and must be received by 5pm Friday 5 June 2026 (the Promotional Period). Entrants may enter multiple projects and multiple categories.
- The project must not be committed for publication before 1 September 2026. What constitutes publication is to be determined by Nook Publishing in its sole discretion.
- By entering this award, entrants confirm and warrant that they have the necessary consents and permissions to publish the project in a mainstream publication.
- Entrants agree that any related publicity and/or promotional activity, including television coverage, belong to Nook Publishing Limited.
- Nook Publishing reserves the right to photograph, film and/or otherwise make recordings of all entries, entered projects and the judging processes, including architects, designers, and any associated parties for promotional purposes and related projects. The ensuing copyright will rest with Nook Publishing (or its contributors) without any claim to compensation from the entrant or any other featured person.
- Entrants agree that all high resolution imagery submitted has been appropriately licensed and may be used by Nook Publishing across its print and digital platforms in relation to awards or editorial coverage.
- Clients’ names relevant to submitted projects should be supplied at the time of entry but will not be published or made public.
- Collaborative projects should be acknowledged on the entry form by listing all parties involved. Entrants agree to seek the consent of all design parties and clients involved prior to submitting an entry.
- Neither Nook Publishing nor any other entity associated with this award will be responsible for any late, lost, misdirected, or incorrectly submitted entries, including but not limited to entries not received due to technical problems or human error. The time entries are deemed to be made will be the time the entry is received, not the time the entry is submitted by an entrant.
- Judging will take place in August 2024.
- The judges of the award will be selected by Nook Publishing in its sole discretion.
- All decisions made by the judges and/or Nook Publishing are final, and no correspondence will be entered into.
- The winners will feature in HOME or Architecture Aotearoa’s August 2026 issues and across all digital platforms.
- Nook Publishing collects and holds personal information provided by entrants for the purposes of this award and for future promotional purposes. All personal information provided by entrants will be held by Nook Publishing. Under the Privacy Act 1993, entrants have the right to access and request correction of any such personal information, and may do so by sending an email to admin@nookpublishing.co.nz.