WA Awards for Chinese Architecture (WAACA) was established by World Architecture magazine in 2002, and was awarded biennially. The mission of WAACA is to encourage and introduce completed works addressing the national conditions of China with innovative values. It aims at enlivening the academic atmosphere of Chinese architectural community, promoting the prosperity of Chinese architectural design, enhancing the quality of Chinese architecture, contributing to the public understanding and recognition of architectural industry in China, and introducing Chinese architects and architectures to the world.

In 2014, the seventh cycle of WA Awards for Chinese Architecture expanded to a larger range, with increased the categories of the awards, and identifying more clearly the value appeal of each award. By encouraging more types of projects to participate in the selection, WAACA intends to introduce more outstanding Chinese architectural works to the Chinese society and the world.

Oct 12th, 2018, when 2018 WAACA was held in Beidaihe, the jury selected 59 entries in total for Winners, Highly commended and Shortlisted projects of WA Achievement Award, WA Design Experiment Award, WA Social Equality Award, WA Technological Innovation Award, WA City Regeneration Award and WA Housing Award from a total of 354 valid entries on the basis of their independent judgment.

At first, books were kept in chests but as they became published in bulk they moved into the cupboard. The doors came off and the bookcase began to evolve. Today, bookcases can be integral architectural elements that shape space and, in some cases, even light. In celebration of International Day of the Book on April 23rd, ArchDaily compiled this round-up of architecturally, innovative bookcases.

Scroll down to see inventive architectural book storage from Alberto Kalach, ARCHSTUDIO, Toyo Ito, and more.

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2017 was a momentous year for Chinese architecture. From Tianjin Binhai Library taking the internet by storm with images of its terraced "sea of bookcases", to Alvar Aalto Medal recognizing Zhang Ke of standardarchitecture for his professional accomplishments. China has retained a remarkable presence in the global architecture scene.

So many of our readers around the world celebrate Chinese New Year and welcome fresh beginnings in the Year of the Dog, we would like to take a look back at 2017 and share with you the most visited projects from China. This is a collection of projects coming from world-famous practices such as MVRDV and MAD Architects, and also from the younger, local talents who have demonstrated great potential in bringing positive changes to China’s built environment.

With nearly 100,000 votes cast during the last two weeks, we are happy to present the winners of the 2018 ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards. This peer-based, crowdsourced architecture award showcases projects chosen by ArchDaily readers who filtered thousands of projects down to the 15 best works featured on ArchDaily in 2017.

Jurors looked for submissions which were not only aesthetic but also pushed the perceived limitations of wood construction.

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We are accustomed to seeing photographs in which architecture is recorded without any occupants, or perhaps captured only with models who give scale to the spaces shown. However, in recent years architectural photographers have increasingly decided to humanize the houses they document, presenting not only their architecture, but also those who inhabit these buildings. In this week's best photos, we present a selection of 15 houses captured by renowned photographers such as Luc Roymans, Adrien Williams and Fernando Schapochnik.

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• Architects

  ARCHSTUDIO

• Location

  Fulllink Plaza, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China

• Category

  Store

• Design Team

  Wenqiang Han, Huizhong Song

• Area

  60.0 m2

• Project Year

  2017

• Photographs

  Weiqi Jin

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• Architects

  ARCHSTUDIO

• Location

  Blue Harbor, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China

• Category

  Interior Design

• Design team

  Han Wenqiang, Wang Xiaoting

• Text

  Han Wenqiang

• Area

  100.0 m2

• Project Year

  2017

North light, south light, warm light and cool light – the diversity of skylights mean they can illuminate any space. Both a window and a ceiling, the hybrid nature of a skylight enables it to be a key element used in architectural spaces. The cool light of a north skylight is instrumental in creating a space to focus and work, while its south-facing counterpart lights up a space with that golden glow. Through its flexibility also come opportunities for expression, from its shape to its angle. Is a skylight a ribbon weaving through a roof panel? Or is it a series of dotted openings creating a mosaic of daylight on the floor? Check out these 16 examples of contemporary spaces lit by this key element below:

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• Architects

  ArchStudio

• Location

  Yau Tang Square, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China

• Category

  Interiors Architecture

• Design Team

  Han Wen-Qiang, Song Hui-Zhong, Huang Tao

• Area

  66.0 sqm

• Project Year

  2016