Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the World Architecture Festival (WAF) has just awarded this year's prizes to a truly global selection of projects. The winners were selected from a pretty long shortlist comprising 434 projects across 68 different countries, and featured everything from a hospital in Iran to a small earthquake-proof prototype house in China.
"These are big-picture initiatives which concern architects both individually and collectively, and we want WAF to play a part in promoting initiatives which are aimed at making life better," says WAF Programme Director Paul Finch.
To this end, WAF also proposed a manifesto directing architects to the key challenges the world faces over the next decade, including climate, energy and carbon; water; ethics and values; and cultural identity.
The award for World Building of the Year certainly hit the manifesto targets. The Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Project in Guangming Village took the main prize for its novel technique for cheap rammed earth construction. It was a surprisingly modest choice for a big prize winner but as Finch says, "this building is a demonstration that architecture is just as relevant in the poorest of communities as it is in the richest."
Take a look through our gallery to see all the big winners, from spectacular concepts to excitingly realized buildings.
Source: World Architecture Festival
