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.

Faced with persnickety municipal regulations that forced the architects to leave the facade intact, Yiacouvakis Hamelin Architectes drew and quartered a 300-square-metre, two-storey house in the Ville Mont-Royal borough of Montreal. Lopping off the back enabled them to redraw the floor plan with circulation in a cross formation, connecting old and new. At the intersection, a double-height void joins the upper and lower levels, and one arm of the cross extends onto a terrace, creating a relationship between inside and out. Ipê floors and ceilings contrast with other material interventions, such as the exposed concrete walls and steel fireplace in the living room.

Location: Montreal, Canada

Firm: YH2, Canada

Team: Marie-Claude Hamelin and Loukas Yiacouvakis, with Donald Arsenault, François Bélanger and Luu Nguyen ­