Thai architect Boonserm Premthada was selected as the winner by a jury chaired by architect Alan Stanton of Stanton Williams and included artist Phyllida Barlow RA, Director of LSE Cities Ricky Burdett, Louisa Hutton of Sauerbruch Hutton, as well as the inaugural winner of the prize Iranian architect Alireza Taghaboni and the winners of this year's Royal Academy Architecture Prize, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio. The two awards recognising emerging talent alongside well-established were launched by the RA last year to coincide with the institution's 250th anniversary. 

Premthada founded the Bangkok-based practice Bangkok Project Studio in 2003. Its past projects are diverse in scale and use, including the Kantana Film and Animation Institute in Nakhon Pathom in Thailand, which was shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013 and named the winner of the Wienerberger Brick Award in 2014.  It is also behind the design of The Wine Ayutthaya, a space dedicted to wine in Thailand's former capital, and is currently working an elephant sanctuary in Surin Province.

“We were all knocked back by Boonserm Premthada’s particularly unique projects, which demonstrate an extraordinary empathy, originality and poetic qualities,” says Stanton. “We are excited to see how Premthada’s work develops, in particular how he can apply his inimitable approach to the challenges of urban environments.”

Premthada was chosen from a shortlist of Mexican architect Fernanda Canales, Alice Casey and Cian Deegan of Irish practice TAKA and Mariam Kamara of Niger-based Atelier Masomi for the £10,000 prize.