WAF: The Latest Architecture and News

The second group of winners of the World Architecture Festival’s (WAF) 2015 category awards have been announced today with BIG’s future Vancouver House in Canada and People's Architecture Office’s The Courtyard House Plugin in China among the awarded projects.

The 14 winners from day two of the festival will go on to compete against the winners of day one to receive the title World Building of the Year. The projects will be presented in front of a Super Jury, which includes Manuelle Gautrand, Sou Fujimoto and Peter Cook.

Check out the Day 1 winners here and view the Day 2 winners after the break.

OMA/Buro Ole Scheeren, Populous, and a21 studio are among the first set of category winners of The World Architecture Festival’s (WAF) 2015 awards. Announced today during the festival’s opening, the winners of the categories will go on to compete on Friday for the title of the World Building of the Year 2015.

Held at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from November 4-6, this year’s festival is centered on the theme 50:50, in honor of Singapore’s upcoming 50th anniversary as an independent country. In addition to hosting the world’s largest architectural awards program, WAF also features three days of conferences, architect-led city tours, documentary screenings, live crit presentations and networking opportunities.

View the full shortlist here, and see which 14 built and future projects took home awards after the break.

World Architecture Festival has today announced the exciting seminar programme for this year’s event. Featuring some of the world’s premier architecture practices including BIG, SOM and Manuelle Gautrand, the talks programme will run alongside the annual WAF Awards and exhibition displays at the world famous Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from 4 – 6 November.

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) has announced the shortlist for its Colour Prize, which is supported by three-time Headline Sponsor AkzoNobel. Last year, the Innovative Use of Color on Exteriors Prize was awarded to the Vienna University of Economics and Business’ Department of Law and Central Administration, for its use of Copper Orange in a 200-meter-long pairing of buildings.

This year’s Color Prize shortlist includes nine projects that span the wide spectrum of WAF award categories:

In addition to hosting the world’s largest architectural awards program, the World Architecture Festival (WAF) also features three days of conferences, architect-led city tours, documentary screenings, live crit presentations and networking opportunities. To be held at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, WAF will take place from November 4-6.

A major component of WAF is the opportunity to learn and expand one’s knowledge of current issues facing architecture and urbanism. Inspired by Singapore’s upcoming 50th anniversary as an independent country, the theme of this year’s conference series is 50:50, looking back on how architecture and urbanism have changed during the last 50 years, as well as forward on what may change or stay the same in the next 50 years to come. The conference will center around three key topics: Designing for Tomorrow; Imagining the Future; and Cities and Urbanism, featuring talks by Michael Sorkin, Peter Cook and Manuelle Gautrand, among many others.

The World Architecture Festival (WAF), the world’s largest architectural festival and awards event held annually in Singapore, has announced the theme of this year's program: 50:50. The theme is inspired by Singapore’s upcoming 50th anniversary as an independent country, and will look back on how architecture and urbanism have changed during the last 50 years, as well as forward on what may change or stay the same in the next 50 years to come.

MuuM's Erciyes Congress and Cultural Center has been shortlisted for the World Architecture Festival Awards in the Culture category for Future Projects. Located in the city of Kayseri, near Turkey's Erciyes Mountain, the Center is part of Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality’s Master Plan, which aims to improve the area for better year round (rather than just seasonal) use.

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Taking inspiration from Charles and Ray Eames’ House of Cards, London-based practice Populous have developed an installation for the inaugural World Architecture Festival (WAF) exhibition. Built from "hundreds of super-sized multiples of a single ‘W' form, the dramatic seven metre high installation forms the centrepiece" of an exhibition which seeks to showcase "the very best in world architecture." This year, 350 projects have been shortlisted from some the world’s best architects and designers.

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INSIDE World Festival of Interiors has announced the 50 nominees being considered for the World Interior of the Year 2015 award. Running concurrently with the World Architecture Festival, INSIDE comprises of the most original and exciting interiors from the last 12 months.

Nominations have poured in from 16 countries that span four continents across the nine diverse categories that make up the awards. Among those competing are two dentistries, a music arena, two cinemas and a global TV studio. All nominees will compete in the form of live presentations and debates to a distinguished jury during the festival in November. Read on for a complete list of the shortlisted projects.

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The World Architecture Festival has announced the shortlist for its 2015 awards. The world's largest architectural awards program, WAF received more than 700 entires from architects and designers representing 47 countries. Some of the shortlisted architects include Foster + Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects, Herzog & de Meuron, OMA, Buro Ole Scheeren and BIG.

All finalists will be invited to present their project live at the festival in November at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore to a "super jury" that will include Sou Fujimoto, Peter Cook, and ArchDaily editor-in-chief David Basulto. A winner for each of the awards' 31 categories will be selected. From this, an overarching World Building or Future Project of the Year award will be selected. Book your tickets today (here) and read on to for the complete WAF 2015 awards' shortlist.

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Deemed “the biggest architectural awards programme in the world,” the World Architecture Festival (WAF) annually awards and recognizes inspiring and innovative built projects from around the globe. The awards have been held over the past seven years, honoring buildings across 30 categories and ultimately selecting the World Building of the Year. From Grafton Architects' School of Economics at the Universita Luigi Bocconi — the first Building of the Year awarded in 2008 — to A21 Studio’s The Chapel — the most recent winner — the awarded projects have included everything from a chapel to an art gallery and even a public garden, spanning the world from South Africa to Vietnam, Italy and Spain.

This year WAF will be held from November 4-6, featuring three days of conferences, exhibitions and lectures in addition to the awards ceremony. As the 2015 award ceremony nears closer we look back at the World Building of the Year winners from the past seven years. See who has taken home the award after the break and learn how to submit your project here. Projects can be submitted for consideration until May 22nd. Use the code ARCHDAILY10 to receive a discount.

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Videos

From November 4-6, the 2015 World Architecture Festival (WAF) will take place in Suntec in central Singapore, featuring three days of conferences, exhibitions and lectures, in addition to the awards ceremony. As the world’s largest architectural festival and awards event, the WAF awards honor exceptional architecture from around the globe across 30 categories. Over 70 judges attend the festival and critique the submitted projects. Among this year’s “superjurors” are Peter Cook, Sou Fujimoto, Benedetta Tagliabue, Manuelle Gautrand, Charles Jencks, and Kerry Hill.

All entries must be submitted by May 22^nd to be considered for the WAF awards. Shortlisted projects will compete for category prizes on the first two days of the festival. On the third (and last) day, the category winners will present their projects to the “super-juries,” which will select the World Landscape, Future Project and Completed Building of the Year.

Past winners have included Zaha Hadid Architects, BIG, Snøhetta and Vo Trong Nghia. Prizes for small projects, use of wood and use of color will also be awarded.

At the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Singapore we had the chance to speak with Richard Francis-Jones, the Design Director of Australian-based practice FJMT. FJMT has a strong focus on public buildings and community work, and their Aukland Art Gallery was selected as WAF’s 2013 World Building of the Year, after winning the Culture Category. “The role of the architect in society is an evolving question. I think in a way we reflect and represent the values of a society, the values of the culture that we’re part of,” he told us. “I think what an architect should do is perform that reflection in a very thoughtful and potentially critical way so that in a sense we’re mirroring the society, its values and its challenges, but at the same time providing a kind of potential insight into the way things could go, a kind of a promise of how things could evolve.”

Now in its eighth year, the forthcoming 2015 World Architecture Festival Awards (WAF) will take place in Suntec in central Singapore following three days of intensive live presentations and judging. Following a $180 million modernisation programme, the redesigned space will host WAF’s soundproofed crit rooms, auditorium and Festival Hall Stage. Entries are now invited from architects and designers for the 2015 edition of what is described as "the biggest architectural awards programme in the world." The awards are expected to attract more than 750 entries, around half of which will be shortlisted into thirty categories. The closing date for entries is the end of May, and shortlisting will take place in early June.

This year’s 'superjurors' include Royal Gold Medallist Sir Peter Cook (UK), Sou Fujimoto (Japan), Benedetta Tagliabue (Spain), Charles Jencks (UK/US), Kerry Hill (Singapore) and Manuelle Gautrand (France).

The search for the winning projects for the 2015 World Architecture Festival (WAF) awards has already begun and now is the time to submit your best projects for consideration. WAF is the world’s largest architectural festival and awards event, annually recognizing exceptional architecture projects from around the globe.

Projects are considered across 30 categories and every entry will be listed on WAF’s global architecture archive, worldbuildingsdirectory.com. If selected as a finalist, you will be invited to the WAF festival in November at Singapore’s Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre to present your project in front of the WAF jury, which includes Kerry Hill, Sir Peter Cook, Sou Fujimoto, Benedetta Tagliabue, Charles Jencks, and Manuelle Gautrand.

This year WAF will be held from November 4-6. The festival features three days of conferences, exhibitions and lectures, during which the awards ceremony will take place. Last year’s theme was “Architects and the City” and featured Rocco Yim and Moshe Safdie as keynote speakers.

During this year’s World Architecture Festival (WAF) held in Singapore, we had the chance to talk with keynote speaker Moshe Safdie. Standing inside the Marina Bay Sands, a massive mixed-use project by Safdie Architects and an example of the firm’s ongoing research on density, Safdie talked to us about Asia's urban environment and the challenges of working there. As the world's growth is happening in dense areas, this subject is utterly important, and Safdie has proven that these kind of mega-urbanism projects can be functionally integrated into the city. “Working in Asia at the intensity and scale that we do has been a paradigm shift for our practice because much of our work in the United States and Israel and elsewhere in recent years has been focused on institutions - on libraries, museums, airports - here we are involved with urban place, mixed-use mostly, extremely dense, working for the private sector, and having to reconcile the market forces with the architectural environmental demands, which is no mean task,” he said.

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Hufton + Crow have been named “Architectural Photographer of the Year 2014” by Arcaid Images. The news was announced in Singapore at the World Architecture Festival after the duo’s interior image of Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Centre staircase received the highest score from the judges. Hufton + Crow also received runner-up in the award's exterior category with another image from the Heydar Aliyev Centre. You can check it out, after the break.

The 2014 World Architecture Festival (WAF) has culminated with A21 studio’s The Chapel being named the Building of the Year. Each winner of the categories from day 1 and day 2 had the opportunity to present their projects in front of WAF’s ‘super-jury’, comprised of Richard Rogers, Rocco Yim, Julie Eizenberg, Enric Ruiz Geli and Peter Rich. Following all of the presentations, the jury selected the Building of the Year. The winners of the Small Project of the Year, Landscape of the Year and Future Project of the Year were also announced today, in addition to two new prizes: The Colour Prize (sponsored by AkzoNobel) and the Wood Excellence Prize (sponsored by American Hardwood Export Council).

Read on after the break for more information on the winning projects…