MAD's design of the Huangshan Taiping Lake Apartments was selected as the winner of ArchDaily's "2018 Building of the Year – Housing" category. The five final shortlisted projects in each category were chosen through nominations and votes from over 100,000 readers. This marks MAD's third win at ArchDaily's Building of the Year awards, following the Harbin Grand Theater's win in 2016 in the "Cultural Building Award" category and the Moonlight Tower's win in 2012 for the "Building of the Year Award."

The design of the Huangshan Taiping Lake Apartments is inspired by the local natural environment. The 10 buildings, varying in height, resemble part of the mountain itself, naturally scattered along the ridges by the lake. The buildings "grow" gradually with the mountain's slope, and the varying shapes and horizontal height differences between the apartments create an interesting yet harmonious response to each other. The overall composition resembles a vertical village built along the mountainside, seamlessly integrating the architecture into the landscape, where the buildings merge with the surrounding natural world.