Press Release
Vernacular Home Rural House by Xinyun Li Is Granted the A' Design Award in Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design
Xinyun Li acknowledged for sustainable products, projects and green design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 15, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Vernacular Home Rural House by Xinyun Li has been granted the A' Design Award in the Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design category. The recognition forms part of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The A' Design Award Explained
The Iron A' Design Award is awarded to good designs that meet the rigorous professional and industrial standards set by the A' Design Awards. This recognition is reserved for works that demonstrate a solid understanding of design principles and show creativity within their execution. Recipients of the Iron A' Design Award are acknowledged for their practical innovations and contributions to their respective fields, providing solutions that improve quality of life and foster positive change. These designs are a testament to the skill and dedication of their creators, showcasing their ability to address real-world challenges through thoughtful design.
About Vernacular Home Rural House
The Vernacular Home in Bangladesh is designed using local materials, mud, bamboo, straw, and bricks made from local soil. Responding to hot climates and long monsoons, it features a steep roof, a raised veranda, and cross ventilation for passive cooling. Openings on windward and leeward walls release heat, while double brick cavities insulate. Clay pots embedded in the tea house wall cool the air. Using liter bottles of light for interiors, the home includes bedrooms, a kitchen, a toilet, cow sheds, and a tea house with a retail supporting their livelihood while ensuring privacy.
About Xinyun Li
Xinyun Li is a New York–based registered architect and multidisciplinary designer working at the intersection of architecture, technology, and cultural narrative. She holds a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and currently works at Perkins Eastman. Her experience spans large-scale mixed-use districts, office towers, institutional environments, residential development studies, and human-centered healthcare spaces, with a focus on design quality, feasibility, and user experience. Alongside professional practice, Xinyun develops conceptual and research-driven work that explores how architecture can serve as a medium of expression.
Award Record
Xinyun Li is a winner of 2 A' Design Awards, including this recognition. All of the awards belong to the 2025 - 2026 edition of the A' Design Award & Competition.
About the A' Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design Award
The A' Sustainable Product Design Award is an international design competition recognizing good sustainable products by leading designers and brands worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to sustainable product designers, green product manufacturers, eco-friendly product brands and industrial designers from all countries. Entries typically include sustainable projects, environment friendly designs, recycled, upcycled and bio-degradable products. Awarded sustainable product designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/sustainable-product
About A' Design Award & Competition
A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/174956
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/174956
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!174956
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/369493
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Vernacular Home Rural House
- Function
- Rural House
- Category
- Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design
- Discipline
- Industrial Design
- Industry
- Sustainability
- Colors
- Ghost White, Dark Slate Gray, Dark Olive Green, Dark Gray and Gray
- Images
- 5
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Xinyun Li
- Country
- United States of America
- Recognition
- A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #174956
Credits
- Image Credits
- Xinyun Li
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- The Vernacular Home in Modonpur, Bangladesh, is a sustainable house built with local materials like mud, straw, bamboo, bricks, and tin sheets. Designed for a family of four, it supports living, working, and livelihood. It responds to the hot, rainy climate with a raised veranda, steep roof, and cross-ventilation strategies in the facade design. Clay pots on the wall cool the tea house, while 'liter bottles of light' brighten interiors, showing a low-cost, low-impact design philosophy.
- Inspiration
- This project explores the social responsibility of architects. Despite rapid technological advancements, many regions around the world remain underdeveloped. People in these areas are more directly exposed to natural conditions, yet they also have the right to live a better life. As architects, we should not only make better use of locally available materials but also respond to the most immediate needs of these communities by designing housing that is practical and suitable for widespread use.
- Research
- Two weeks were spent in the village to become familiar with local materials and to study traditional mud construction techniques as well as straw-tying methods. During this period, I also researched the climate of Para Dash and analyzed the vernacular architectural language, considering how new strategies could be integrated into the design to improve the microclimate. The needs and expectations of the local residents were carefully documented and incorporated into the final design.
- Challenge
- Use the vernacular materials and design the buildings to face the local climate to make the microclimate more comfortable. Control the building budget and labor cost under 2500 USD.
- Realization and Technology
- Bangladesh's locally made bricks and tin sheets. Natural straw, mud, pottery, and bamboo. The brick and the tin sheets are standard sizes and are manufactured in the local factories. Traditional handmade mud and the way of polishing. The potteries on the mud walls are smaller than the local typical size, which were made in the neighboring village. The way of tying the straw is their vernacular type.
- Operation and Interaction
- Given the hot climate in Bangladesh and long monsoon season, the design addresses thermal comfort and climate responsiveness through spatial layout, façade design, and roof form. A raised veranda protects against flooding, and steeply pitched roofs ensure efficient rainwater runoff. Rooms are arranged for optimal cross-ventilation, with varying window heights on windward and leeward sides to expel heat. On the tea house façade, locally made clay pots from a neighboring village are inserted into the mud wall to help cool the air by compressing airflow, enhancing microclimate comfort.
- Project Duration and Location
- It is designed in Modonpur, Bangladesh, a very natural village called Dash Para. The design phase lasted 4 months. It is a concept design.
- Specifications
- tin sheet: 2' width * 8' length Brick: 9 5/8" length* 4 5/8" height * 3" depth Pottery: large opening is 5" R, and the small side opening is 1.5" R The mud wall is 10" thick Bamboo: 1.5" R
- Keywords
- sustainability, vernacular home, rural, house, traditional building, local materials, climate
