Running alongside the main seminars is the world's largest architectural awards programme - the World Architecture Festival Awards. Unlike other award schemes the WAF Awards give access to something more often reserved for a select few - to see shortlisted architects present their schemes live to international judging panels, including the likes of Sir Peter Cook, Kengo Kuma, Renato Benedetti and Will Alsop and delegates, as they compete for the ultimate accolade of World Building of the Year 2009. Rafael Vinoly is chair of the super-jury which will choose the winner from 15 finalists announced at a glittering awards ceremony at the end of the festival on Friday 6th November.

You will find below the winners of Day One including a brief description of each project.


Winners announced
at World Architecture
Festival

worldarchitecturefestival.com

Future projects education
Malama Learning Center Hawai
by Eight Inc

MIT student wins prize
with design for Mumbai

Amanda Levete Architects wins
interiors prize with Corian showroom

Zagreb Arena by Upi-2m wins
structural award.

Miralles Tagliabue EMBT wins
top future project award for Shanghai Expo pavilion

Peter Rich wins World Building of the Year award
for Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre in South Afric

Future projects education
jury report
This category was refreshing in its variety. The majority of submissions were competition entries, with only one in the construction stage and the rest undergoing design or tender works and due to start in about three months´ time. A music school set in a high density area was competing with buildings of historical importance, and an art and design school in a commercial zone of Estonia. But in all the submission, there was an approach to sustainability, albeit with varying degrees of commitment.

The winner is Eight Inc for its Malama Learning Center in Hawaii. Its aim is to teach the community about the diverse yet dying species of flora and fauna on the island. The design provides spaces for cultivation and research, with the building itself becoming a laboratory for cultivation with the community. The thin wafer-like structure of green ribbon provides a harvest and promotes the project. The shadows and penetration of light through the green roof are not only interesting but also help create the bio climate needed for the cultivation of some of the species. The project sustains itself in its low carbon emissions with a small foot print of built structure and is rooted to its context. The building blends into the surroundings and aims for LEED certification.

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Malama Learning Center
Category:Future Projects - Education
Location:Kapolei, United States of America
Architect:Eight Inc., Honolulu, United States of America

MIT student wins prize
with design for Mumbai
jury report
Sabrina Kleinenhammans, a graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has won the AECOM Design + Planning Urban SOS; Distressed Cities, Creative Responses student design competition at WAF. Her prize is USD$20,000. Kleinenhammans was shortlisted against students from the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín (Peru), the University of Pennsylvania (USA), the Polytechnical University of Madrid (Spain) and Colombia University (USA), but wowed judges with her Pre-emptive Landholding Strategy in Mumbai. All five semi-finalists gave strong and innovative presentations for transforming global cities to offer lasting improvements, to leading industry experts at the Festival. The competition attracted over 1,000 submissions, from 239 universities and colleges in 65 countries around the globe, to transform global cities and offer lasting improvements. The multi-disciplinary judging panel consisted of architect, educator and critic, Sir Peter Cook, Nabil Gholam, founder of NG Architecture and Planning, Bill Hanway, Chief Operating Officer for AECOM, Vladmir Plotkin, TPO Reserve Chief Architect and a Professor at the International Academy of Architecture, Christopher Choa, Principle at AECOM Design + Planning. Kleinenhammans’ proposal uses the spatial element of frequently intersecting transportation lines, such as railways, to create a cohesive network of open spaces and a recreational system for Mumbai’s citizens. Paul Finch, programme director of WAF said, ´The innovative concept shows real understanding of urban design and socio-economic issues, and how these must be well-executed to provide vibrant and cultural economic centres. This education opportunity and the chance to present their work to some of the leading figures in the architectural industry has been a real platform to help springboard their future careers´. The Urban SOS: Distressed Cities, Creative Responses competition, asked teams of students worldwide for creative and innovative design and planning solutions to address the environmental, social, and economic challenges confronting cities worldwide and offer lasting improvements. Two further teams were awarded Highly Commended for their suggested solutions – Stephanie Ulrich and Sahar Moin from the University of Pennsylvania (USA) for their Interseed – Border of El Paso/ Juarez Mexico design, and Olivier Woeffray from the University of De Lausanne, Switzerland, and Miriam Fernandez Ruiz from the Universidad Politecnia de Madrid for their Siem Reap, Cambodia solution.

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Amanda Levete Architects
wins interiors prize
with Corian showroom
jury report
Amanda Levete Architects, based in London, has won the Interiors and Fit-Out Prize, awarded at WAF for the first time. The win is for the Corian Super-Surfaces Showroom in Milan.

The jury, chaired by Lorenzo Apicella, wrote: ´What made this project exceptional is that it methodically explored a familiar material that is loved, but perhaps not fully understood by most designers that use it, ´

´Here the architect has pushed the boundaries of what this material can do in both form and structure. In many ways they have recast the possibilities Corian affords the designer. We see Corian as a poetic and sensual material as much as a practical and utilitarian one.

´This is the designer as inventor, craftsman and scenographer. They have made a beautiful and complex space without the feeling that a material has been misused. For an environment made entirely of a composite it feels both light and natural. Lighting was made integral to the displays, animating both space and product. Colour was also used expressively, woven into walls, shelves, tables and seating to create a sensuous interior envelope.

´Transforming standard existing panel products, the architect has demonstrated how to achieve a visually rich space with an economy of material and means.´

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Corian Super-Surfaces Showroom
Category:Interiors and Fit Out - Retail (small)
Location:Milano, Italy
Architect:Amanda Levete Architects, London, United Kingdom

Zagreb Arena by Upi-2m wins
structural award.
jury report
Bamboo was prominent in this year’s structural design category with three of the eight projects shortlisted using bamboo as their main structural form. The judging panel was impressed by the research and experimentation that had been done with this material, particularly demonstrated by the wNw Bar in Vietnam by Vo Trong Nghia Co. Using bundles of bamboo, jointed with bamboo pegs, the team created a vast circular gridshell dome with a phenomenal span of 70m. Also highly commended was the Richmond Olympic Oval Roof, designed by Fast + Epp structural engineers. The roof features composite glulam-steel arches spanning some 100m with specially constructed secondary panels made from readily available timber planks spanning around 14m between. The judges liked the use of a discarded material – the timber had been killed by a recent epidemic of the mountain pine beetle - and the intelligent design of both the main span and secondary unit.

However the Arena Zagreb by Upi-2m was the outright winner of this year’s structural design category for its simple, elegant and efficient structural concept - the external inward leaning ribs or columns, braced by a ring beam, supported the suspended roof. The prestressed prefabricated columns, which were between 27m and 39m in length, were a huge undertaking in their own right. Upi-2m had to design an erection system for the large cast on site members, working with local contractors, who at first had said it couldn’t be done. The judges felt the finished stadium transformed the area, providing a catalyst for development.

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ARENA ZAGREB
Category:Structural Design - Spans (eg bridges, stadiums, big sheds)
Location:Zagreb, Croatia
Architect:UPI-2M

Miralles Tagliabue EMBT wins
top future project award
for Shanghai Expo pavilion
jury report
Judging the Future Projects Final involved us in the flexing of our brains between macro projects for whole city transportation through inflatable venues and hospitals to minute and elegant interventions, writes Peter Cook. We were continually assured (of course) that the projects were based upon sustainable ethics and then, suspiciously often, draped in greenery. The winner – EMBT’s Spanish Pavilion for Shanghai - was something else however: a simultaneously logical, charming and clever extrapolation of the Spanish sense of dance (without in the least being corny) and a development that progressively involves the tradition and the actuality of Spanish basket-weaving. It was described with exemplary logic that suggests that this will not only be a beautiful object, but also the fruit of a different kind of sustaining – that of intense study, craft and wit over the whole period of design. This quality of ‘follow-through’ lifted it just ahead of the very beautiful Cemetery for Szentendre by A4 - awarded a commendation - with its evocative and sensitive drawings and a diagram that will demand equally impeccable choice of material. Another commendation is given to the East London Green Grid by Design for London that is a powerfully convincing strategic plan. This last project represented for Mark Dytham, Bill Hanway and myself (the jury) the ‘best of breed’ within the group that included various categories of infrastructure and strategy. Perhaps next year, this group can be siphoned-off from the rest of the ‘Future Projects´- not to kick them into touch, but more to elevate their significance and support their sponsors. A final quizzical note comes from the clearly observable difference in valued criteria (not just ‘style’) between the European architects and the Americans – or American-trained. Maybe a question of sensitivity, maybe a question of priorities - perhaps some journal might be bold enough to take this issue up some day?

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Spanish Pavilion for 2010 Expo Shanghai
Category:Future Projects - Cultural
Location:China
Architect:Miralles Tagliabue Embt, BARCELONA, Spain

Peter Rich wins
World Building of the Year award
for Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre
in South Afric
jury report
South African architect Peter Rich is the second winner of the World Building of the Year award for his Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre in South Africa, a building on the site of an ancient civilsation which is also designed to highlight the fragility of the enviornment.

Chaired by Rafael Viñoly, this year´s international super jury (which included Kengo Kuma, Farshid Moussavi, Suha Ozkan and structural engineer Tim Macfarlane) had an especially tough task in deciding on an overall winner for World Building of the Year.

How do you compare an elegant little shop with a piece of landscape design or a winery with an aviary? Jurors were impressed with a number of schemes – such as the redevelopment of Father Duffy Square in New York by Choi Ropiha, Perkins Eastman, PSKB Architects and WOHA´s Bras Basah Mass Rapid Transit Station in Singapore. Both schemes, they felt, responded to complex urban problems in highly sophisticated ways.

They also admired the winner of the Landscape category, by Chinese architects Turenscape for its imaginative qualities and strength of execution.

But after a lively debate, the jury conceded that the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre by Peter Rich was clearly the most architecturally and psychologically powerful project in the final, very tough, analysis. 'It carries both weight and a message of complexity to the outside world, ' commented Suha Ozkan. The jury agreed that the way in which it related to the land and made graceful virtues of the challenging issues of sustainability, politics and social improvement made it a highly deserving winner.

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Mapungubwe Interpretation Center
Category:Culture
Location:South Africa
Architect:Peter Rich Architects, Johannesburg, South Africa

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