World Architecture Festival 2010

Now in its third year, the World Architecture Festival has become the platform for the world’s biggest architecture contest that attracts architects worldwide to battle it out in Barcelona. From November 3–5 this year, over 500 entries from 65 countries competed for awards in just 15 completed buildings categories, with three Australian practices emerging victorious. International superstars met the industry’s unsung, with each to have gone head-to-head in front of a jury of architecture luminaries to take out the grand title of 2010 World Building of the Year. We take a look at some of the winners from this year’s Festival.

BUILDING OF THE YEAR
CATEGORY: Culture
WINNER: MAXXI, National Museum of XXI Century Arts
ARCHITECT: Zaha Hadid Architects
LOCATION: Rome, Italy

Having just taken out the Stirling Prize earlier this year, MAXXI, Italy’s National Museum of XXI Century Arts, by Zaha Hadid Architects, was awarded the coveted title of 2010 World Building of the Year. Selected by the WAF super jury out of a shortlist of 14 projects from around the world, the architect’s win was inevitable; their highly original process was a marriage of sympathetic programme and demands of a building type that called for sculptural interpretive spaces. The success of the project came out of the architect’s ability to address the question of its urban context, a strategy that maintains a link to a former army barracks while continuing a low-level urban profile set against higher level surroundings. Speaking at the awards ceremony, Paul Finch, content director of the World Architecture Festival spoke on behalf of the judges, describing MAXXI as “a volume that takes its place in a very happy way in the volume of the city. It is like an unwound Guggenheim, with ribbons of connective space. It is a building that will still be talked about in the history of architecture in 50 years’ time”.

CATEGORY: New and Old
WINNER: DDB Office
ARCHITECT: Erginoglu & Calislar Mimarlik Insaat Ticaret ve Turizm
Limited Sirketi
LOCATION: Istanbul, Turkey

The judges of WAF 2010 witnessed a plethora of remarkable projects that found creative solutions integrating new structures and uses into existing historical fabric, but one project really caught their eye. DDB Office won World’s Best New and Old Building 2010 because it did more than any other scheme to initiate change. Once a 170-year-old salt repository in a former industrial district of Istanbul, the architects were able to revitalise four dilapidated stone buildings and tempt their clients (advertising agency Medina Turgul DDB) away from the safety of the business district in order to revive a run-down area. The new building of glass and steel now houses the creative business to exist in its own private space connected by a series of mezzanine floors. Interventions were often kept simple and practical, yet returned overwhelmingly positive design outcomes.Walls were repaired and washed, new skylights were installed to illuminate existing stone structures, and 1950s steel roof beams were retained and repaired. The project at large paves the way for future regeneration projects, as seeds for change that in time will allow places of forgotten Istanbul to grow again once more.

CATEGORY: Transport
WINNER: The Helix Bridge
ARCHITECT: Cox Architects, Australia + Architects 61, Singapore
LOCATION: Marina Bay, Singapore

Designed by Cox Architects in collaboration with Architects 61, The Helix Bridge in Singapore is just one of a few bridges in the world named after its structure. The bridge won World’s Best Transport Building 2010 for its spectacular helical form that allows it to sculpturally curve in plan and section. The project boasts major prominence in the city, marking the opening of the Singapore River to Marina Bay, a large inner harbour where much of the city is now focussed. The helix of the structure is accentuated by LED lighting incorporated throughout its two spirals – an impressive light show experience for pedestrians moving through the night. The Helix Bridge does much for the city at large, fostering informal gatherings and an urban sense of community through a series of cantilevered ovular ‘pods’ that hold up to a hundred people each, extending over the bay. The structure makes its mark in Singapore as a new urban place, a vital artery of sorts that connects the country’s existing city with newly emerging precincts.

CATEGORY: Health
WINNER: Brain and Mind Research Institute – Youth Mental Health Building
ARCHITECT: BVN Architecture
LOCATION: Sydney, Australia

Australian practice BVN Architecture was awarded Word’s Best Health Building for their Youth Mental Health Building at the Brain and Mind Research Institute (BMRI) in Camperdown, Sydney. The project was unanimously chosen out of a shortlist of six entries for its “simplicity of design, response to site and brief, approach to external appearance and materials, and carefully considered internal spaces”. BVN’s unique strategy combines the treatment and research of mental health into one building, with two floors of consulting and patient interaction and two floors of research laboratories. The facility took into account diverse requirements and constraints, resulting in a building that adds a human-scaled, tactile environment for mental health patients, while addressing an inner-city streetscape of residences and Camperdown’s industrial charm. Steel, recycled timber and face concrete block make up the street edge, with an enclosure of translucent glass planks above ensuring diffused daylight to the laboratories within. The jury recognised the sophisticated intervention of the local that saw it soar over other entries from around the world, including a hospital in the UK by Foster + Partners.

CATEGORY: Learning
WINNER: School of the Arts
ARCHITECT: WOHA
LOCATION: Singapore

Singapore’s powerhouse practice WOHA dominated this year’s Festival with designs that change the face of building typologies and consequently garner worldwide recognition. WOHA’s School of the Arts, Singapore won World’s Best Learning Building, a redefinition of the educational institution that mixes the school and public realm with sustainable imperatives and outcomes. In combining professional performing arts spaces with a high-density inner-city school, WOHA designed the project around two conceptual parts called the Backdrop and Blank Canvas. At podium level, The Backdrop includes a concert hall, drama theatre, black box theatre and areas for informal performance. The Blank Canvas houses the school set in three rectangular six-storey blocks spanning the podium, a simple, flexible space. Its metaphor relates to open possibilities and focus on education rather than the architectural frame. A material palette of off-form concrete, painted walls and metal railings are masterfully used, softened by walls of living creepers that bring a carbon-friendly life to the inner-city neighbourhood.

CATEGORY: Office
WINNER: Vali Asr Commercial Office Building
ARCHITECT: KELVAN Architects
LOCATION: Tehran, Iran

Vali Asr Commercial Office Building by KELVAN architects isn’t your typical office of stacked floor plates behind a curtain wall. The architects have instead created something really special – a low-lying structure finished in contrasting bands of black and white Brazilian marble. At the heart of a busy retail district in Iranian capital Tehran, the two-storey structure lies within a major retail hub neighboured by historic six-storey buildings and ruins, resulting in the structure’s definitive response not to compete in elevation with its surroundings. The architects considered the charming façade as a city skin, a skin that brings the motion and dynamism of the city and its people into its architecture, one of elegance in a limited material palette. The small, highly refined project provides a sophisticated response to its urban context, bringing a surprising level of craft and detail to a larger scale both inside and outside of the building. The judges described the project simply as a “jewel of a building within an intense urban environment”.

CATEGORY: Holiday
WINNER: Alila Villas Uluwatu
ARCHITECT: WOHA
LOCATION: Bali, Indonesia

Fusing vernacular architecture with contemporary approaches to space and form, WOHA are building a global reputation for innovative design in tropical environments. Alila Villas Uluwatu is a testament to WOHA’s award-winning work, now famed to be the World’s Best Holiday Building. The project blends the architecture of Balinese pavilions with the inspiration of the rural landscape, comprising of a 50-suite hotel with 35 residential villas located on the south coast of Bali. The design preserves the natural qualities of its site, accentuating the pleasures of inhabiting the area’s immediate surroundings, rather than attempting to recreate stereotypical imagery of Bali. A terraced low-pitched roof was developed using volcanic Balinese pumice rock, rather than the steep pitch of typical Balinese pavilions, which was inspired by local farmers’ terraces and had excellent thermal qualities. Hotel rooms were designed as inhabited gardens rather than interior enclosures, with each villa boasting a pool and cabana overlooking the sea. Alila Villas Uluwatu takes on many environmentally sustainable design solutions that have added to its success. The master plan itself follows the site’s natural contours to minimise cut and fill; rainwater is collected; wastewater is treated on site; and materials were sourced locally. The project is an exemplar study for future resorts, a case where luxury doesn’t necessarily mean excessive consumption, and where true joy and relaxation can come simply from natural beauty and sense of place.

CATEGORY: Sport
WINNER: Soccer City, National Stadium
ARCHITECT: Boogertman+Partners in association with Populous
LOCATION: Johannesburg, South Africa

With the World Cup putting South Africa in the limelight for 2010, Soccer City National Stadium by Boogertman+Partners in association with Populous has added an extra kick for the country’s prominence, having clinched World’s Best Sport Building award. The design makes a strong and memorable connection with its history, sense of place, and the world game. Its main form was inspired by the traditional calabash, a large African pot, chosen as the most recognisable object that represented the African continent and no other. The calabash is seen as a melting pot of African cultures, and sits on a raised podium on top of which a “pit of fire” sits. Undeniably a regional approach, Soccer City National Stadium is a genuine example of a building formed deep from its roots and culture, one that brings an exciting new future to an otherwise run-down area, a building recognised instantly as the face of the South African World Cup.

CATEGORY: Shopping
WINNER: Yamaha Ginza
ARCHITECT: Nikken Sekkei Ltd
LOCATION: Japan

Architects Nikken Sekkei have hit a sweet note in their design for musical instrument manufacturer Yamaha, Yamaha Ginza. Now boasting to be the world’s supercomplex for sound, it’s now World’s Best Shopping Building. The project incorporates shops, a music hall that seats 300 and music school facility. Located in Ginza, one of Japan’s leading shopping districts, the architects designed the project around three connected atrium spaces with playful curved timber to conceptually appear as if the architecture itself were a woodwind instrument inside a glass showcase. The judges, who reviewed a tremendous variety of projects in terms of scale and complexity, ranging from shop fitouts to major shopping centres, selected Yamaha Ginza out of a shortlist of 9 entries by some of the world’s most distinguished architects and renowned industry experts. The judges said “The Yamaha Ginza Building is a breathtaking presentation, which represents the highest levels of sophistication in terms of response to programme, scale of ambition, refinement of detailing and engagement with the surrounding physical context”.

CATEGORY: House
WINNER: A Forest for a Moon Dazzler
ARCHITECT: Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architect
LOCATION: Guanacaste, Costa Rica

Nestled within the Costa Rican rainforest, emerging UK-based architect Benjamin Garcia Saxe designed a small house for his mother to gaze at the stars. Little did he know that the project itself would elevate his status amongst the stars of the architecture universe. A Forest for a Moon Dazzler is a small bamboo structure that provides a simple dwelling with a view of the moon. “The architect addressed the practical and emotional needs of his mother’s security by creating a home for her to occupy alone, while also satisfying his inventive curiosity with a new form of bamboo Moucharabieh screen that responds to movement and light”, said the jury. The house introverts the role of the forest by bringing it inside, providing an internal patio where functions rotate around. Constructed from over 4000 pieces of bamboo, the house has a simple layout, featuring a bedroom on one end and a kitchen on the other, housed within a structure that opens to the sky under a majestic ‘umbrella roof’. +

1. Brain and Mind Research Institute – Youth Mental Health Building, Sydney, Australia. Photos: John Gollings 2. The Helix Bridge, Singapore. Photo: Christopher Frederick Jones 3. Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI, National Museum of XXI Century Arts took out 2010’s World Building of the Year; its raw conrete exterior and striking black-and-white interior catching the eyes of the super jury. Photo: Hélène Binet 4. School of the Arts, Singapore. Photos: Patrick Bingham-Hall 5. Yamaha Ginza, Japan. Photos: Courtesy Nikken Sekkei Ltd