"International Building of the Year" was the new academic building of the Luigi Bocconi University in Milan, Dublin Bureau Grafton Architects. This building was presented twice at the Venice Architecture Biennale - in 2002 (as a project that just won the competition) and in 2008.
The building houses a conference center, lecture halls (including the main one for 1000 seats), administrative premises and research laboratories for 1000 teachers and graduate students. The jury noted the firm and self-confident character of the building, re-interpreting the language of modernism, its connection with the urban space, the emphasized three-dimensionality of the project, the thoughtful functional and aesthetic solution of spaces for the circulation of human flows.
This work by Grafton architects Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell also became the best in the Education category, one of 17 special awards for the 224 WAF 2008 shortlisted projects announced this summer.
Also the winners were:
- in the nomination "public building" - the Baiyun International Congress Center in Guangzhou of the Belgian Bureau II;
- "nature" - Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle by Weiss / Manfredi Architects;
- “Energy, Waste and Recycling” - landscape reconstruction of the managed landfill “La Vall d'en Joan” near Barcelona by Batlle & Roig Architects;
- “health care” - Women's Health Center in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, by the Italian bureau FAREstudio;
- "rest" - the cultural center of the Nk 'Meep Desert in the Canadian province of British Columbia by Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden Architects;
- "Culture" - a new opera house in Oslo by the "Snøhetta" bureau;
- "housing" - the Mountain Dwellings residential complex in Copenhagen by the BIG workshop;
- "Old and New" - the reconstruction of the courtyard of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington by Norman Foster;
- “office” - the Duoc Corporate Building in Santiago de Chile by Sabbagh Arquitectos;
- "pleasure" - a sheepfold near Almere (Netherlands) workshop 70F Architecture;
- "production" - the complex "BMW World" in Munich "Coop Himmelb (l) ay";
- "religion and contemplation" - the Dornbuschirche church in Frankfurt am Main by Meixner Schlüter Wendt Architekten;
- "sport" - a gym in Bale, Croatia by 3LHD Architects;
- “shopping” - K: fem shopping center in Stockholm by Wingårdh Arkitektkontor AB;
- “private houses” - the Final Wooden House in Kumamoto by Sou Fujimoto Architects;
- "transport" - funicular Hungerburgbahn - Nordpark in Innsbruck Zaha Hadid.
These 17 laureates made up the "super-shortlist" of candidates for the 2008 World Main Building title. Since they included the courtyard of the Smithsonian Museum, the author of his project, the chairman of the "super-jury" Norman Foster had to resign; he was succeeded by Robert Stern. Cecil Belmond (Ove Arup & Partners), curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2006 Richard Burdett and Syuha Ozkan (Center "Architecture XXI", Ankara) also acted as judges.
