The AJ100 is back, and this year our award-winners are pushing at the boundaries and encouraging a better way of doing things.

As part of our drive to support and celebrate positive change, new this year is AJ100 Champions, a group of practices moving the dial either in their own projects and working practices, in the wider industry and beyond. The cohort forms our supercharged shortlist for the Practice of the Year award.

In the issue we reveal all the victors of the AJ100 Awards, including Contribution to the Profession winner Kate Macintosh, as well as new categories that celebrate emerging talent within the UK’s largest practices. Our New Talent cohort – celebrating Part 1 and Part 2 architectural assistants and newly qualified architects – inspires and challenges in equal measure.

The latest AJ100 data shows a mixed picture of the sector and, since it was collected, we know several practices have struggled. Architectural fee income is well up, and there are encouraging signs of increased diversity. But there is a slight fall in the numbers of architectural staff, including, most noticeably, architectural assistants.

In Culture, we review a new photographic project pairing every Car of the Year with a building completed in the same year. Opinion pieces by Toko Andrews and Tim O’Callaghan also feature in the issue, as does the monthly competitions round-up, and Hellman’s cartoon on the forthcoming general election.