For the sixth annual AZ Awards, our intrepid jury narrowed the field from over 800 submissions, received from dozens of countries, to select just 48 finalists that stood above the rest. In addition to presenting the AZ Award winners, Azure recognized these projects, products and concepts with Awards of Merit.

The expanding global population and rising sea levels are on a collision course, and coastal regions require a built environment that can accommodate the coming changes, according to Gabriel Muñoz Moreno of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In response, he has rendered, in beautiful detail, an elevated coastal development strategy, in the form of a Meccano-like network of modular platforms and permeable cells, as well as the connections that enable the two planes to co-exist: humans on top, brackish biosphere below. It may look like a gargantuan water park, but it succeeds in leaving no mark on the ecosystem below it.

School: Harvard University Graduate School of Design, U.S.

Designer: Gabriel Muñoz Moreno