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Founded in 2010, our annual Cocktail Napkin Sketch Contest honors the legacy of sketching in architecture and showcases the skills and imagination of a diverse group of architects and related professionals. This year, RECORD editors sorted through over 250 submissions to select the winning sketches, shown below.

Click sketches to enlarge

Samuel Ringman
Architect and Illustrator, Ringman Design & Illustration
Dallas

Dallas-based architect and illustrator Samuel Ringman earned his Master of Architecture at Texas A&M University and worked at HOK before establishing his own firm dedicated to design and illustration. Ringman won the Cocktail Napkin Sketch Contest in 2015 and was selected for Most Amusing sketch in 2020. For this year’s sketch, he began with randomly placed lines that he then developed into a drawing. The title, “No Trespassing,” he decided on after adding a scale figure. A frequent patron of cafés, Ringman often uses napkins to record an idea or concept. “Usually, they are fleeting thoughts that I want to remember with a few lines or notes—sometimes they become actual drawings,” he says. “I have a whole stack of these with little sketches sharing space with to-do lists and other ephemera.”

Subhojit Sinha
Senior Associate, Perkins&Will
Dallas

For Subhojit Sinha, sketching plays an important role in the design process. “It is a constant companion in my journey of exploring concepts, testing possibilities, and working through details long before they take their final form,” he says. “I have come to realize that the art of sketching is a powerful tool for shaping and clarifying my thoughts.” Sinha moved from India to the United States to complete his M.Arch. at Kansas State University. He worked at RTKL Associates (now Arcadis) in Dallas for a decade before joining Perkins&Will as a senior associate. His winning sketch depicts Louis Kahn’s Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad—the first project by Khan that Sinha, a longtime admirer of the American architect, had the opportunity to visit. “I wanted to capture that essence by bringing together the iconic view of the library and the building layout in a single composition to celebrate Kahn’s design brilliance,” he explains.

Eric J. Jenkins
Eric J. Jenkins Architect
Baltimore

Carlos Chaparro
Safdie Rabines Architects
San Diego

Ryan Chester
JGMA
Chicago

Diana Grigoryan
Earl Swensson Associates
Nashville, Tennessee

Michael Schock
Parasoleil
Westminster, Colorado

Tom Guida
Arkitek PM
Arvada, Colorado

Karim Asarzadeh
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia

Ryan Mackey
MG2
Seattle

Vlad Zadneprianski
JTPG Architecture
New York City

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