Australian projects honoured in World Architecture Festival 2018 Awards Shortlist

A standing camp, providing accommodation and communal facilities for tour guides and walkers in Mount William National Park, wukalina, Tasmania, Emanuel Synagogue in Woollahra and Melbourne Innovation Precinct are among the projects from Australia shortlisted in the World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards 2018 – the world’s biggest architectural awards programme.

Architects and designers from Australia will join the world’s architectural elite later this year as practices across the globe prepare to attend World Architecture Festival (WAF) 2018. WAF will reconvene for its eleventh edition in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from 28-30 November this year. This is the first time the event has been hosted in the Dutch capital, following previous editions in Barcelona, Singapore and Berlin.

Australia dominates the ‘Residential Completed Buildings’ category – more than 20 per cent of shortlisted projects are from Australia. Highlights include John Wardle Architects’ Boneo Country House on the rolling hills of Mornington Peninsula in the ‘House’ category and Bureau Proberts’ Bardon House, situated on a ridge-top in the hilly suburbs of Brisbane for the Villa category.

Other strong contenders include Highgate Primary School in the ‘School Completed Buildings’ category, by Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects in Perth; a local school that reflects the town’s building heritage and suburban architectural context.

Leading Australian architectural thinkers and industry personalities such as John Wardle, founder at John Wardle Architecture will speak at WAF in Amsterdam during three days of conference programmes, awards, exhibitions and fringe events.

This year’s shortlist builds on the strong regional performance from last year. Previous winning projects from Australian practices include Sydney Fish Markets by Allen Jack + Cottier Architects and NH Architecture for ‘Future Project of the Year 2017’ and ‘Masterplanning – Future Projects’ categories, East Sydney Early Learning Centre by Andrew Burges Architects for School – ‘Completed Buildings’ category.

The 2018 awards programme received more than 1000 entries for the first time with numbers up 20 per cent compared to 2017. Architects and designers across 81 countries were represented on the shortlist.

Paul Finch, Programme Director of World Architecture Festival, commented: “It is encouraging to see so many entries from Australia, and doubly encouraging because so many of them relate to ideas and approaches for the challenging residential sector.”

All types and sizes of architectural projects are represented on the 2018 shortlist for WAF, ranging from private residential, to education, infrastructure, healthcare, hospitality, cultural/civic, interior and landscape projects. Major world architects shortlisted include Zaha Hadid Architects, OMA, Foster & Partners, BIG, China Architecture Design Group, Leigh & Orange, Aedas, Grimshaw, Woods Bagot, Skidmore Owings & Meril, Heatherwick Studio and FJMT. Many smaller practices will also take part and pitch against the big names.

The architects and designers behind each shortlisted project will compete for category prizes at WAF from 28-30 November where they will present live to international juries in front of festival delegates. Category winners will then compete against each other on the final day of the festival for the ultimate accolades of ‘World Building of the Year’, ‘Future Project of the Year’, ‘Interior of the Year’ and ‘Landscape of the Year’.

The 2018 completed buildings ‘Super Jury’ which will decide the World Building of the Year, will be chaired by Nathalie de Vries, Director & Co-founder of Dutch practice MVRDV; panellists include Sir David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates; Manuelle Gautrand, Principal, Manuelle Gautrand Architecture; and Li Xiaodong, Founder, Li Xiaodong Atelier and Professor at School of Architecture, Tsinghua University.

The full shortlist for this year’s awards can be viewed HERE.

For more details on the WAF Awards and the festival please visit: worldarchitecturefestival.com