OMA and Buro Ole Scheeren's vertical village in Singapore, The Interlace has been named the World Building of the Year 2015 at culmination of the World Architecture Festival (WAF). Celebrated for being "an example of bold, contemporary architectural thinking," as WAF Director Paul Finch described, the project is eighth building to ever win the illustrious award. It is considered to be a "radical new approach to contemporary living in a tropical environment."
Winners of the year's Future Project, Landscape, Small Project and Color Prize awards were also announced. Read on to see the who won with comments from the jury.
World Building of the Year Winner: The Interlace (Singapore) / OMA and Ole Scheeren
The Interlace is one of the most ambitious residential developments in Singapore's history, generating an intricate network of living and social spaces intertwined with the natural environment. Instead of following the default typology of housing in the region – clusters of isolated towers - the vertical is turned horizontal, with 31 apartment blocks, each six stories tall and 70 meters long. Stacked in hexagonal arrangements around eight large-scale open permeable courtyards, the scheme creates a network of internal and external environments that create a multitude of shared and private outdoor spaces on multiple levels.
Future Project of the Year Winner: Vancouver House (Canada) / BIG
This is a delightful project that generates an exemplar new urban typology, mitigating the destructive impact of the highway flyover and creating an opportunity from typically abandoned public space. It will impact positively on many future municipality and developer-led agendas for cities across the world.
Landscape of the Year Winner: Yanweizhou Park (China) / Turenscape International
Yanweizhou Park showcases a replicable and resilient ecological solution to large-scale flood management. Sitting at the mouth of three rivers, each over 100 meters wide, the Yanweizhou project uses groundbreaking strategy to create a water-resilient terraced river embankment that is covered with flood adapted native vegetation. The park’s pedestrian paths and pavilions are integrated with the planting terraces, which adapt to seasonal flooding.
The project was praised for its ‘significant impact on flood migration and use of bridges to playfully knit the locality together, creating communities on both sides of the river.’
Small Project Prize: Lidingövallen Small Football Stadium (Sweden) / DinellJohansson
The Small Project of the Year was awarded to Lidingövallen, a Swedish football stadium in miniature, by DinellJohansson. Praised for its imaginative response and the big impact possible with a small project, the judges called it ‘a heroic result’.
AkzoNobel's Prize for Color in Exterior Architecture: ONS INCEK Showroom & Sales Office (Turkey) / Yazgan Design Architecture
Recognized as the best use of color across the year’s 338 shortlisted entries, the judges felt that the use of color contributed to a strong piece of architecture that saw form and color integrate seamlessly.
All comments provided by the WAF jury.
