Attracting designers and architects from all the world for the annual World Architecture Festival (WAF), the Berlin convention hosted speakers and handed out its prestigious design award accolades from November 16-18.
Snatching the title prize, World Building of the Year 2016, is an underground museum that makes full use of its roof as a public space. The National Museum in Szczecin was designed by Robert Konieczny, the lead architect of KWK Promes. The building was constructed with just pre-cast concrete, while the sunken foundation ensures the museum doesn’t block views of the iconic Philharmonic next door.
Led by architect David Chipperfield, the judging panel felt the Polish project “[enriched] the city and the life of the city.” Describing the museum as topography, the judges, in a press release, said, “To go underground is to explore the memory and archaeology of the city, while above ground the public face of the building, including its undulating roof, and be interpreted and used in a variety of ways.”
The National Museum in Szczecin beat out other designs—such as the Chengdu City Music Hall in China by Aedas and Zaha Hadid Architects’ Investcorp Building for Oxford University’s Middle East Center at St. Antony’s College—that had won in their entry category earlier in the festival. With entries submitted from 58 countries, the WAF judges selected from a total shortlist of 343 projects that were then critiqued based on the building type (residential, mixed-use, education, et al.). Curated from the list of category finalists, winners were then chosen for each of the six awards you’ll find in the gallery below.
World Building of the Year
National Museum in Szczecin
Robert Konieczny
Future Project of the Year
South Melbourne Primary School
Hayball
Landscape of the Year
Kopupaka Reserve
Isthmus Ltd.
Small Project of the Year
ZCB Bamboo Pavilion
Chinese University: Hong Kong School of Architecture
World Interior of the Year
Black Cant
Hangzhou Interior Design
Arcaid Photography Awards Winner
Covered Reservoir
Matt Emmett
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