With the deadline fast approaching on 10 June, entries are pouring in for the world’s largest live and truly global architectural awards programme - the World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards, which take place in Singapore from 2 4 October 2013.

The festival’s organiser’s, i2i Events Group, have already seen projects submitted from as far afield as New Zealand and Denmark, via Mexico and Azerbaijan. The geographic spread of entries is further complemented by the variety of projects, from a Botanical Garden Visitor Centre in New York to a Community Centre for Youth Support in Belgium via a 'Tent House' in New Zealand.

Entries from several emerging markets are already up substantially this year, with projects from Malaysia (up 300%), Vietnam (up 40%) and Mexico (up 33%) when compared to last year, reflecting the construction surge in these locations. The organisers have also received entries from several countries that were absent from last year’s festival awards, including Azerbaijan and the Dominican Republic. Despite the depressed construction sectors in several established European economies, a significant increase in entries has been seen in Germany and the Netherlands, with entries of projects in Italy up 600%.

Paul Finch, WAF Programme Director said: “As the World Architecture Festival continues to grow in scale, scope and stature, so too does the quality of award entries we receive. The truly global nature of the festival is reflected by the huge number of project countries, which demonstrate the demand for innovative architectural design across the world despite the continued economic uncertainty. With the deadline fast approaching, we’re calling on all practices to get their entries in so that they are in contention for winning one of the most coveted prizes in architecture – The World Building of the Year award.”

The WAF awards are renowned for their highly innovative format which allows a range of entrants, from leading global architectural firms to small practices, to compete as equals on a global stage. All shortlisted entrants present their work live to WAF’s esteemed panel of international judges in over 300 public crits. Entries have already been received from practices including Weiss/Manfredi Architects, WOHA, Ronald Lu and Partners, Eight Inc., Turenscape and Nikken Sekkei. 

The World Architecture Festival (WAF), the world’s largest, live, inclusive and interactive global architecture event, is returning for its sixth successive year. Building on last year’s successful relocation from Barcelona to Singapore, the festival will once again be taking place at the spectacular Marina Bay Sands resort. The festival is being held in association with Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA)’s festival of ideas about the city, Archifest. 

The WAF Awards sit at the heart of the festival, and will see practices from around the world compete across 29 individual award categories for global recognition. Competing across three category groups of completed buildings, landscape projects and future projects, previous WAF Award entrants have ranged from renowned global architectural firms to small local practices.

Architects of every shortlisted project are invited to attend the festival to give a live presentation to a panel of judges, asserting their case for why their project should win. The winners of each category are put forward to compete for the coveted World Building of the Year award, presided over by the festival’s ‘super-jury’, with the presentation of the award being the culmination of WAF 2013.

World Architecture Festival is collocated with INSIDE World Festival of Interiors www.insidefestival.com. INSIDE celebrates the world’s finest interiors of the last year and also has at its heart a live international awards programme. The entries deadline for the INSIDE Festival Awards is also 10 June.

For more information visit:www.worldarchitecturefestival.com 

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Notes to editors

About WAF

World Architecture Festival (WAF) is the largest annual festival and live awards programme for the global architecture community. 

It will take place at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore between 2nd – 4th October 2013.

WAF has three central pillars of activity:

• A wide-ranging conference programme, featuring keynote lectures, dozens of expert-led talks and seminars from thought-leading architects and designers from across the globe. 

• The world’s largest annual awards programme in which practices from around the world compete across 29 award categories for global recognition. Architects of every shortlisted project are invited to attend the festival to give a live presentation to a panel of judges, asserting their case for why their project should win. The winners of each category are put forward to compete for the coveted World Building of the Year award, presided over by the festival’s ‘super-jury’, with the presentation of the award being the culmination of WAF 2013. This year’s super jury includes Ken Yeang - Llewelyn Davies Yeang; Patrick Bellew - Atelier Ten; Jeanne Gang - Studio Gang Architects; Dietmar Eberle - Baumschlager Eberle and Ken Tadashi Oshima -University of Washington.

• Three festival halls where all award entries are displayed in a unique awards gallery and where sponsors and suppliers can interact with delegates, make new contacts and showcase their services and products.

As well as this the festival plays host to an international, live student charrette; parties and receptions in some of Singapore’s most exciting locations; exclusive tours to Singapore’s most recent architectural sites of interest and a celebratory gala dinner and awards ceremony. 

WAF has welcomed over 10,000 attendees to date, including 1,900 in 2012. The Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, itself a previous WAF Award winner, is WAF’s home for the second year running, having been held in Barcelona for four years previously, providing the perfect backdrop to this truly global architectural extravaganza.

WAF Awards Programme

The WAF Awards are the global industry benchmark for excellence. Entries are welcome in 29 categories, spanning completed buildings, landscape projects and future projects. Entries are now open, ahead of the closing deadline on 10th June 2013.
Individual Categories:
Completed Buildings:

• Civic and community
• Culture
• Display
• Health
• Higher education/research
• Hotel/leisure
• House
• Housing
• New and Old
• Office
• Production/energy/recycling
• Schools
• Shopping
• Sport
• Transport
• Villa


Landscape Projects:
• Completed designs – rural and urban

Future Projects:
• Commercial mixed-use
• Competition entries
• Culture
• Education
• Experimental
• Health
• House
• Infrastructure
• Leisure-led development
• Masterplanning
• Office
• Residential

For a full list of WAF 2012 Award Category Winners, visit: www.worldarchitecturefestival.com 

About WAF’s organisers - i2i Events Group

i2i Events Group delivers world-class exhibitions and large scale events in key sectors including home and gift, fashion, retail, healthcare, energy, environment, education, technology and media. Its portfolio of world-wide events includes World Retail Congress, RWM, Spring Fair, Naidex, BVE, Bett and Pure London. It prides itself on opening up possibilities for its customers and each year brings more than 250,000 decision makers together to network, source, test, buy and sell brilliant products, services, ideas and solutions. The company is headed up by Mark Shashoua who joined EMAP as Group MD of EMAP Connect in November 2011 and became CEO of i2i Events Group in March 2012. i2i Events Group is powered by Top Right Group, formerly known as Emap International Ltd.

About Archifest 2013

Archifest 2013, A Festival of Ideas About The City is Singapore’s annual architecture festival organised by Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA). Running from 27 September 2013 to 13 October 2013, the festival returns with a brand new theme – Small is Beautiful. Through the lens of the theme, Archifest 2013 will use the city as a laboratory and frame Singapore as an urban ecosystem beyond singular architectural projects. It will explore and celebrate projects, design studios, communities and ideas that might be small by choice and circumstance but are large in ambition and impact. 

Festival highlights include Archifest Pavilion Competition Design, Archifest Forum, SIA Award Dinner, School of Urban Ideas, Architours and Fringe.