Known for their stunning, and often unconventional architecture, OMA and Ole Scheeren are the lead designers who brought the architectural vision of The Interlace to life.With offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, Hong Kong and Doha, OMA is a leading international partnership practising architecture, urbanism and cultural analysis. OMA’s buildings and masterplans around the world have achieved global acclaim for their unconventional, yet intelligent designs and distinctive forms.Ole Scheeren is a leading German architect and principal of Büro Ole Scheeren with offices in Hong Kong and Beijing. Scheeren has designed some of the world’s most iconic structures in various cities across Asia. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Singapore (CNN) If you want to understand what the city of the future might look like, a good place to start would be this week's World Architecture Festival (WAF). 
 
 In the exhibition hall of Singapore's glitzy Marina Bay Sands resort, over 2,000 architects from the world's top firms and emerging practices have gathered together to present their designs, ranging from the incredible (buildings that float atop the ocean), to the outlandish, (a skyscraper made from bamboo). 
 
 But the festival is more than just an exhibition showcase, it's also a chance for the industry to recognize the very best in architectural design. 
 
 Firms present and defend their designs to jurors, in front of a live audience 
 
 Throughout the three day event, competing architects present their ideas in 20-minute blocks in front of a live audience, in the hopes of impressing a panel of expert jurors. The process, as WAF program director Paul Finch puts it, is somewhat reminiscent of a dog show. 
 
 "It's the best in breed and the best in show," says Finch, referring to the 31 competition categories and 338 entries. 
 
 "On the final day of the festival, all the category winners, present again to 'super jurors' -- the great and good of the architecture and design world. From that we get the World Building of the Year, the Future Project of the Year, the Interior Design of the Year, and the Landscape of the Year. The very best of the best." 
 
 World Building of the Year 
 
 This year's top honor, the coveted 'World Building of the Year' was awarded to the Interlace -- an ambitious residential development in Singapore -- by Netherlands-based OMA and Buro Ole Scheeren from Germany. 
 
 The mixed-use structure is located within a green belt area of the city-state's southern ridges, and claims to challenge traditional notions of what it means to live in a modern tropical metropolis. 
 
 Photos: 'The Interlace' crowned World Building of the Year 2015 The Interlace has been crowned the World Building of the Year 2015. Designed by OMA and Buro Ole Scheeren, is described as "one of the most ambitious residential developments" in the tropical island-state's history. Hide Caption 1 of 7 Photos: 'The Interlace' crowned World Building of the Year 2015 Although it's also called a "vertical village," the Interlace stretches horizontally with 31 apartment blocks, each six stories tall and 70 meters long. Such design is seen as a radical move away from the "clusters of isolated towers" that is typical of housing in the region. Hide Caption 2 of 7 Photos: 'The Interlace' crowned World Building of the Year 2015 Though set in Singapore -- a highly-planned city-state -- the Interlace envisions itself as a "intricate network of living and social spaces intertwined with the natural environment." Hide Caption 3 of 7 Photos: 'The Interlace' crowned World Building of the Year 2015 Stacked in hexagonal arrangements around open courtyards, the scheme strives to create a "network of internal and external environments," mixing shared and private outdoor spaces on multiple layers. Hide Caption 4 of 7 Photos: 'The Interlace' crowned World Building of the Year 2015 The project beat other category winners announced earlier at the festival, including a bamboo community center in Vietnam and a dome-shaped transport hub and retail space in Manhattan. Hide Caption 5 of 7 Photos: 'The Interlace' crowned World Building of the Year 2015 World Architecture Festival Director Paul Finch praised the project as a trailblazer, saying it "presents an alternative way of thinking about developments which might otherwise become generic tower clusters." Hide Caption 6 of 7 Photos: 'The Interlace' crowned World Building of the Year 2015 The Interlace is the eighth project to claim the illustrious title of World Building of the Year since the competition's inception in 2008. The festival has been held in Singapore for the past four years and will move to Berlin in 2016. Hide Caption 7 of 7 
 
 Rather than building upwards -- as is so often the case -- the Interlace (as its name would suggest) expands outwards, through an expansive interconnected hexagonal lattice of apartment spaces that are integrated with the natural environment. 
 
 Buro Ole Scheeren partner Eric Chang said the firm wanted to conceptualize the design as more of a village: "It's a large scale project -- it's 170,000 square meters and accommodates 1,040 units. So we were thinking: 'How can we build more for a village rather than for housing?' 
 
 "In our design, there's multiple opportunities for social connectivity, a real sense of community, the presence of nature, and generous space." 
 
 As well as making full use of green and open spaces, with large roof gardens, cascading balconies and expansive shared courtyards, these interlocking blocks incorporate a variety of sustainable features. 
 
 "We looked at a lot of mainly passive designs strategies," says Chang. "We looked at quantifiable analysis on daylight control, solar radiation, wind movements, heat gains, solar exposure, which courtyards would get the most heat gain, and the planning of activities were organized around these factors." 
 
 But the winning result was by no means straightforward, as Professor Sir Peter Cook, the founder of 1960s avant-garde architectural group Archigram, and one of the event's 'super jurors' explains: "It's very difficult, with so many beautiful, quite worthy projects." 
 
 "I think you look for a power of impact. It's something you know you'll remember in two years' time. It's a game-changer." 
 
 "So much of architecture is predictable, particularly housing. Another block, another block, another block. But this isn't ho-hum here we go again." 
 
 Looking to the future 
 
 The congregation of the industry's best and brightest gives a rare chance for architects and designers to share ideas, with this year's keynote lectures tackling core questions such as the future of height, design, localizing food production, building in extreme climates, and intelligent materials. 
 
 Scott Duncan, an architect at Skidmore Ownings and Merrill (SOM), who led a discussion exploring how technology and local height regulations impact on building design, believes the aspiration to build taller is not going away anytime soon. 
 
 As part of the team involved in the construction of the 99-story Pertamina Energy Tower in Indonesia's capital Jakarta, Duncan is something of an expert on the subject. 
 
 "Modern cities -- especially those in developing economies -- understand how an iconic building can define them in the world." 
 
 But Indonesia faces its host of climate change woes, so SOM puts forth this idea: what if, instead of structural considerations, they allowed saving energy to drive the design? Could Jakarta's skyline be defined by a symbol of renewable energy? 
 
 "We have no choice but to confront climate change," says Duncan. "So our entire building form, and detailing and tech, was all driven by this net zero energy goal -- doing a building that didn't consume anymore energy than it generated on its own." 
 
 That energy source, explains Duncan, will come from local volcanoes. Through the conversion of geothermal energy, the building will be the world's first self sufficient skyscraper. 
 
 Future of Food 
 
 Rahel Belatchew of the Swedish urban design practice, Belatchew Aritekter, highlighted an experimental proposal of how urbanites in Stockholm could one day get their food. 
 
 Pods of insect farms -- because in the future, insects, rather than livestock, will be humanity's main source of protein, she claims -- would be located at traffic intersections. This would reduce our dependence on meat and our need for farmable land. 
 
 The scarcity of resources also inspired conversations around materials -- and how to become more sustainable. 
 
 New, innovative materials 
 
 CRG Architects proposes an ambitious way of using bamboo 
 
 Architects, here, are looking to technology and green materials to reduce energy consumption. 
 
 Bamboo was recently recognized by the United Nations as a green building material that can help combat climate change. 
 
 Carlos Gomez of CRG Architects, proposes using the strength of the material, in skyscraper form. According to Gomez, what if buildings not only reduced their emissions, but actually absorbed CO2? 
 
 Bamboo has been used for thousands of years -- but Gomez is one of the first to think of it on a larger scale -- in the form of a skyscraper. 
 
 Optimal conditions 
 
 Though many might scoff at the idea -- even the more tenuous of concepts are worthy of thought, says festival curator Jeremy Melvin. 
 
 That's just the nature of architecture: "Architects always think about the future, and mostly in an optimistic way. You have to project something that you hope will be better than what exists." 
 
 The World Architecture Festival in Singapore 
 
 But the conditions have to be right. 
 
 "To make great architecture, you need space, political will, vision and money," says Melvin. 
 
 Singapore, then, is not only an appropriate place to hold the festival, but an example to the world. 
 
 "Singapore is an interesting place for architecture. It has a powerful planning framework, and its been influential on how its grown and the opportunities its given to architects," says Melvin. 
 
 WAF director Paul Finch adds, "Everyone that has been here, is incredibly impressed by the design planning integration that is part of Singapore's society and part of the Singapore government's ethos for the past 50 years. Consequences of well planned city traffic, housing and public transport finds a happy mix. There are lessons here for both old and emerging cities on how Singapore has done it." ||||| More than 2,000 architects recently descended on the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore for the eighth annual World Architecture Festival (WAF), which bestows top honors on a host of dazzling new and upcoming buildings. This year’s celebration included presentations from more than 350 finalists in 34 categories, including best designs for higher education, religion, residential, infrastructure, and master planning. 
 
 The program also hosted dozens of panels and seminars conducted by industry leaders from a range of renowned firms, such as Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; Bjarke Ingels Group; and Níall McLaughlin Architects. This year, the winner of WAF’s most coveted award—the World Building of the Year—was the Interlace, a striking residential complex located in the festival’s host city and designed by architect Ole Scheeren of OMA. Below, we’ve rounded up some of the most inspiring victors from this year’s festival. 
 
 For a full list of winners, visit worldarchitecturefestival.com ||||| World Architecture Festival 
 
 One of the most prestigious prizes in architecture has just been awarded to a housing complex in Singapore. 
 
 The judges at the World Architecture Festival 2015, which ran from November 4 to 6, has bestowed its top honor, the World Building of the Year Award, upon an apartment complex known as The Interlace. Designed by Ole Scheeren for the Dutch-based Office for Metropolitan Architecture, the building was an entry in the housing category, where it was also recognized as the top entry. 
 
 World Architecture Festival 
 
 The development is on an elevated site covering 8 hectares. It makes the most of being in the lush green Southern Ridges of Singapore, with its 31 stacked apartment blocks each measuring six stories high and ensuring beautiful views in every direction. 
 
 This also creates eight huge, open courtyards with rooftop sky gardens and terraces for public and private use. The development's apartment facings were carefully designed to ensure privacy. 
 
 But this unique design doesn't sacrifice living space. The complex contains 1,040 apartment units of varying sizes spread across more than 1.8 million square feet — all with an incredible amount of outdoor space and landscaping.
– If the best view from your apartment is into your neighbors' living room, prepare to be envious of the residents of Singapore's the Interlace—the winner of the World Building of the Year at the eighth annual World Architecture Festival. Designed by Netherlands-based Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Germany's Buro Ole Scheeren, the building is more than 1.8 million square feet, spread across eight hectares. The word building is used rather loosely, however. The apartment complex actually includes 1,040 apartment units in 31 six-story blocks, stacked at odd angles so that each apartment includes views of the lush green surroundings, reports Business Insider. There are also open courtyards, plus rooftop terraces and gardens. A rep says the idea was to create a village rather than a standard apartment complex. "There's multiple opportunities for social connectivity, a real sense of community, the presence of nature, and generous space," he says, per CNN. Though the Interlace won the top award in the housing category, as well as the title of best building overall, there were many other winners in 34 categories, per Architectural Digest. Among them: the Fulton Center in New York City. It took home the top award in the transport category, partly due to its 110-foot-tall glass oculus and "Sky Reflector-Net," which sends dappled light onto 300,000 daily commuters. Other designs presented at the festival included buildings that float on the ocean and a skyscraper made of ... bamboo. (The Interlace's home city, meanwhile, is also the best at this.)