World Architecture Festival

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) is an architectural and design event held annually and considered to be one of the most prestigious events dedicated to the architecture and development industries. It was founded by Paul Finch and Jeremy Melvin for the purpose of showcasing and exhibiting architectural projects and is the world's largest annual architectural event. It is the only architecture festival that combines a live–judged awards programme, where shortlisted architects present their projects live in crit rooms to a judging panel, with seminars and networking events. One of these projects is then awarded the 'World Building of the Year' title.
The World Architecture Festival was first held in 2008 as a "festival and live awards competition dedicated to celebrating and sharing architectural excellence from across the globe". The first four events were held in Barcelona, from 2008 to 2011, at which point the festival moved to Singapore for four years. Since 2016, host cities have included Berlin and Amsterdam.
Over a thousand projects are entered in the competition for the awards each year and more than 550 of these are shortlisted for live presentation at the festival. The architects pay a submission fee to enter a Future Project or a Completed Building project and travel to where the festival is arranged to present the shortlisted project live to a jury panel. The entries are voluntary and the festival does not control who submits projects. In 2011, the sister event INSIDE Festival (for interior architecture and design) was added in the same venue and arranged at the same time as WAF.
WAF maintains the World Buildings Directory as an official listing of all past and present projects entries to festivals.
Entries can be submitted to the following award categories – Completed Building, Future Project, Landscape or Inside.
Each year the World Architecture Festival publishes a list of the winners of the awards on their official website.
WAF organises an annual architectural and design event for architects, designers and suppliers to gather together and celebrate, learn and discover. It provides an opportunity for architects to present their projects and ideas, highlighting innovative design solutions, sustainable practices, and cultural diversity in architecture. The festival aims to promote architectural innovation, recognize outstanding projects, and stimulate meaningful and impactful conversations about the future and processes of the built environments.
The World Architecture Festival was held for the first time on 22–24 October 2008 in Barcelona. Its programme director was Paul Finch. An important part of the festival was the awards programme. The competition was open to building completed within the past 18 months, between January 1, 2007 and June 20, 2008. There were 722 entries competing in 17 categories, comprising 96 building types from 63 countries. After a preselection, 224 projects from 43 countries have been shortlisted. All the shortlisted architects presented their work during the festival and the winners competed for the top award, the World Building of the Year. The judging panel was headed by Norman Foster and included Stefan Behnisch, Robert Stern and Zaha Hadid among the 40 architects on the panel. 1,900 visitors from 70 countries attended the festival.
In 2008, the World Building of the Year was awarded to: Bocconi University, Italy (by Grafton Architects).
Gallery of some of the 2008 winners
The second World Architecture Festival took place in Barcelona at the Centre Convencions International Barcelona (CCIB) on November 4 to 6 2009. Projects from 67 countries participated in the competition. 272 projects were shortlisted, in 15 categories. A jury of architects and industry figures from around the world judged the competition's 45 Awards. The winners of the 15 categories of completed buildings competed for the Building of the Year Award. In addition to the categories from the 2008 festival three new sections were added: Interiors and Fit-out, Structural Design and Future Projects. In 2009, 1,507 architects from 71 countries came to Barcelona for the festival.
Awards 2009
Gallery of some of the 2009 winners
The third World Architecture festival took place in Barcelona at the CCIB Forum (Centro de Convenciones Internacionales de Barcelona) November 3 to 5 2010. The festival was the largest and most comprehensive of its kind in 2010. More than 500 entries from 65 countries competed in 15 main categories and in over 20 further sections. The festival had 5 awards sections, 42 categories and more than 100 types of buildings. The competition was open for entries on April 2 to July 9 and the shortlist was announced in late August. The shortlisted projects were presented at the festival.
Awards 2010
Gallery of some of the 2010 winners
The fourth World Architecture Festival (WAF) was held in Barcelona from November 2 to 4, 2011, at Centre de Convencions Internacional de Catalunya. More than 700 projects were entered for the competition. More than 1,300 people attended the awards ceremony. The competition opened for entries on April 1 and closed on June 30, 2011. In 2011 Michael Sorkin, Ben van Berkel, Jo Noero, Odile Decq and Professor Kongjian Yu, and Tim MacFarlane were members of the jury. The opening night was held inMedia-ICT (by Cloud 9) which was later to win the World Building of the Year Award. The World Building of the Year was elected from the 16 completed buildings winning their category.
Awards 2011
Gallery of some of the 2011 winners
The fifth World Architecture Festival (WAF) was moved to Singapore at Marina Bay Sands and was held from October 3 to 5 2012. The festival awards was nicknamed «The Architectural Oscars» at the time. The World Architecture Festival was at the time the world's largest global architectural awards programme. Paul Finch was director of the festival. There were over 700 entries from more than 60 countries. Awards were given in 33 categories and 301 entries were shortlisted. The competing projects were judged after a presentation during the festival. In the jury choosing the World Building of the Year 2012 were Ben van Berkel, Moshe Safdie, Mok Wei Wei, Jürgen Mayer, Yvonne Farrell, Peter Cook, Kenzo Tange, Sou Fujimoto, Jeanne Gang, Dietrich Ebermarle and Charles Jencks among others. Over 1800 architects, designers and press from more than 60 countries attended. There was some criticism of the list of speakers being white, male, over 40 since of the 44 speakers on the festival 4 were women and 9 Asians.
Awards 2012
Gallery of some of the 2012 winners
The sixth annual WAF was held in Singapore at Marina Bay Sands from 2 to 4 October 2013. It was attended by over 2,100 architects and designers from 68 countries. WAF was collocated with INSIDE World Festival of Interiors. The entries competed in 29 award categories across three category groups of completed buildings, landscape projects and future projects:
More than 300 projects from 50 countries made the official 2013 shortlist. The festival's organiser's were i2i Events Group.
The super-jury included Ken Yeang, Patrick Bellew, Jeanne Gang, Dietmar Eberle and Ken Tadashi Oshima.
Awards 2013
Gallery of some of the 2013 winners
The seventh annual WAF was held in Singapore at Marina Bay Sands from 1 to 3 October 2014. The event had more than 2000 attendees.
Awards 2014
The eight annual WAF was held in Singapore at Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre from 4 to 6 November 2015.
The ninth annual WAF was held in Berlin, Germany from 16 to 18 November 2016.
The tenth annual WAF was held in Berlin, Germany from 15 to 17 November 2017.
The eleventh annual WAF was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands from 28 to 30 November 2018.
The World Buildings Directory (browse directory) hosts the official listing of all past and present projects awarded by WAF.
You can browse/search the directory by these categories: