A record 536 buildings and projects are nominated for WAF awards this year. Most of the finalists - 56 - are from China. The Australians and the British are just a little behind. The nominees will be judged in 34 categories, divided into four parts: completed projects, "future projects", small projects and landscape. The format of the WAF competition involves a personal presentation by the authors of all finalist projects before the jury of each category. And the winners of all categories will qualify for the Grand Prix and the title of "Best Building 2018".
Thirteen projects from Russians in the final is also a record. Last year there were eight, so the chances of winning have almost doubled. We asked representatives of the authors' teams to comment on their participation in WAF 2018, as well as the choice of a project to submit to the competition. ***
Five works by SPEECH were included in the "short list" at once. These are unrealized projects of a low-rise residential area in Sergiev Posad and an office building on 2nd Brestskaya in Moscow, as well as already completed projects: the Luzhniki stadium, the Federation tower and the exhibition pavilion in Lavrushinsky lane.
Sergey Choban
head of the SPEECH architectural bureau
“WAF is one of the few, practically the only international architectural competition, that is, the one where the decisions are made by the members of the architectural jury, where projects and completed buildings from Russia can be submitted. Sometimes, by the time the materials are submitted, these projects and implementations accumulate more, sometimes less - in our case, the number of selected and submitted projects depends on this.
The principle of selecting projects for submission is the same - the most important objects for the bureau at the moment are submitted”.
It is not the first year in a row that Nikita Yavein's studio "Studio 44" has been among the finalists.
won in two nominations. This time attention was paid to the project of the museum and exhibition complex "Defense and the Siege of Leningrad" in St. Petersburg and the educational center for gifted children "Sirius" in Sochi.
Nikita Yavein Head of the Studio 44 Architectural Bureau
“This year we have submitted two projects for the competition: the Museum and Exhibition Complex“Defense and Siege of Leningrad”and the Educational Center for Gifted Children“Sirius”in Sochi. Both projects are complex from an urban planning and architectural point of view, of great social and cultural importance.
The Museum project is well known, and we are just beginning to present the educational center. We have been doing it since 2016. This is a very interesting and difficult task, including the development of a master plan while preserving the existing park zone and including three new buildings for the main directions in the educational process of the Center "Science", "Art" and "Sport", each with its own characteristics. The location in the park gave us the opportunity to use the pavilion nature of the architecture, a little playful, with buildings of unusual shape and construction, inscribed in the landscape. Plus - the Center has its own symbolism based on the space theme, which we were also able to beat.
From the point of view of presentation at the festival, in both cases we are faced with the task of finalizing the demo part. It is necessary to formulate a kind of "project legend", including the background, key points in the search for an image and volumetric-spatial solution, the discovery and complexity of the project process, and most importantly - the significance that each of these projects will have for the city and its inhabitants. But it is not enough to formulate this legend - you need to structure and form it in the form of a vivid, understandable visual series.
These demonstration materials are very useful not only for showing at WAF, we also use them in our work in Russia: for showing to customers and at various professional events. So participation in the WAF gives us the opportunity to "kill two birds with one stone": participate in the competition and practice presentation skills. " ***
Traditionally, a project from the Wowhaus bureau was included in the short-list of the WAF festival. This year, the team nominated a pilot project for the reconstruction of the Moscow monorail, which generated a lot of interest at Arch Moscow.
Oleg Shapiro
partner of the architectural bureau Wowhaus “Wowhaus annually sends its projects to WAF, sometimes even two or more. And, by the way, all our projects were shortlisted in the competition, starting with the very first one: it was the open-air Pioner cinema in Gorky Park, which we presented in Singapore. We are a practically oriented bureau; it has always been important for us to show not just an original project, but a project with excellent implementation. This year we are participating for the first time with a promising concept in the Master Plan category, and, in our opinion, it is worthy of implementation.
The work on the revitalization of the Moscow monorail was interesting to us ourselves, and we decided to show the result to a professional audience. Visually, it is similar to the projects from the High Line series (there are already several of them around the world): it seems - the same renovation of the transport infrastructure, also on the raised railroad tracks. But on closer examination, everything is completely different. The monorail is a very recently created infrastructure that could not take root, but there is life around it, so we use a lot of what already existed there - both the engineering system, and the infrastructure of stations and depots, including electricity, which is abundant there. …
If this project succeeds, it will become the object of a new identity for the entire city, and then we will be able to address two audiences at once - to local residents and to those who will come here specially. It seems to us that we have come up with a rather ingenious new function for the Monorail - such a sports promenade "health path", beating its linearity. In addition, we clearly tied it to the place: for example, at the end where the garden of the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy is located, we now have greenhouses with seedlings that you can buy. We have provided for the possibility of watering and organizing gardens and greenhouses there.
We use the depot in the same way: we are making a new cultural center in it and we propose to organize a branch of the Transport Museum here. In our opinion, this is a multidimensional, promising idea, interesting to implement.
For the presentation of this project at Arch-Moscow, we have created an installation called "Monosad" with an animated video, which we will gladly show at WAF. Usually we send a leading architect to present a project, but since this is not an implementation, but a concept, which was also developed by Wowhaus interns, the ideologists of the bureau will probably go to Amsterdam themselves."
Asadov's architectural bureau nominated one of its recent projects for the award - the first building of the International Medical Cluster in the Skolkovo Innovation Center, which will be opened in the very near future.
Andrey Asadov
Head of the Architectural Bureau Asadova “This is not our first experience of participation in WAF, and I must say that the idea of the festival, as a professionally oriented and commercial project at the same time, demonstrates its effectiveness. I think that the Zodchestvo festival would benefit from this experience.
Every year the popularity of the WAF festival is growing, the number of submitted projects is increasing. This year, as far as I heard, there were more than 1,300 applications submitted, so the competition was quite high. Only every third project was shortlisted. We sent two realizations: a medical cluster in Skolkovo and an airport in Perm, only the medical cluster became a nominee. It seems to me that both the architectural qualities of the building and its social orientation have worked. In the Skolkovo project, we develop a theme that we started at the Hematology Center in Moscow - architecture with a healing effect, a space that has a beneficial effect on a person. I think this is where we will focus our presentation. According to the experience of previous festivals, it is important to concentrate on the main idea, formulate the message of the project and then reveal it as much as possible. The manner in which information is presented is of great importance. The focus is on the artistry of the presentation and the speaker himself. This will be another interesting training in presentation skills, which are very important for every professional architect."
Zaryadye Park from a team of authors consisting of Sergey Kuznetsov, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Heargreaves Associates & Citymakers has become another implementation seriously claiming victory in its category.
Peter Kudryavtsev Head of Citymakers Bureau
“From the very beginning of WAF's existence, I actively promoted this award in Russia, as I trusted the professionalism and integrity of the team of The Architectural Review magazine and personally Paul Finch - perhaps the most knowledgeable and open architectural expert. Now our Zaryadye has become a nominee for the award - which is especially valuable for me, since I have been on the other side of the barricades many times - on the jury. WAF has its own characteristics - projects that win must meet high social standards - for this WAF is often criticized by our architects. It seems to me that Zaryadye is in full accord with them. We will be preparing to defend the project in Amsterdam."
Two more “future projects” in the short list are from IND architects: design for the Klenovy Boulevard metro station and the concept of redevelopment of the water tower in Shcherbinka.
Amir Idiatulin CEO of IND architects
“For the first time, we submitted two applications for participation in the World Architectural Festival 2018 and both made it to the final. Before that, we went to previous festivals several times to understand the specifics of the competitive procedure and presentation of projects. According to my observations, socially responsible and projects that have a connection with the city have a great chance of winning. And in our projects, these aspects, it seems to me, are well emphasized. Reconstruction of the water tower demonstrates a way to involve old, unnecessary for the city, but carrying the memory of places, objects into the modern urban fabric and introducing new social functions into sleeping areas. A metro station is a way to personalize a place, create a recognizable symbol of a district and a city through design.
Another important point for WAF is a thoughtful presentation. It shouldn't be oversaturated with slides. It is necessary to give the jury members an opportunity to understand the project and see the main thing. Video clips are always effective, but they should not be too long and it is better if the author himself will comment on them. And it is imperative to prepare for the answers to questions from the jury members. They are professional architects and will surely ask difficult and even tricky questions. No need to try to laugh it off or avoid answering. After all, all architects face roughly the same problems, and Russian practice is no exception. I am very glad that Russian architects are participating in such international events that help raise the rating of the Russian architectural school in the eyes of foreign colleagues."
Also among the contenders for the festival awards is the project of the new territory of Moscow State University from BRT RUS.
Dina Dridze creative director, chief architect of the BRT RUS design bureau
“We have nominated our project in the category“Future project. Education”and it was a risky experiment. The fact is that our project is unique for the WAF competition and, in general, for Russia. In our country, such detailed projects for the development of such a large territory have rarely been made. On the basis of the layout project previously made at the NIIPI General Plan of Moscow, we have developed a "Project for the development of a new territory of Moscow State University" for 90 hectares. Our documentation takes into account and describes all the parameters, functions and characteristics of future development, up to each block and house, transport infrastructure, gradations and profiles of all streets, green areas, public spaces and so on, while maintaining compositional integrity and unity with the historical layout of the complex University on Sparrow Hills. This is a work of immense scale and scrupulousness, which requires qualifications and a desire to understand it. To our delight, the organizers of the WAF competition have paid attention to our application, sent questions and requested additional materials. As a result, our project reached the final of the competition and we are faced with a new task - how to fit all the key points into a short presentation, which should be at the same time as informative and effective as possible. Of course, we have a lot of high-quality visualizations, but unlike architectural projects, they are just an addition to a huge set of developed documentation. It is good that among the jury members announced on the WAF website there are many highly qualified specialists who can evaluate our project and the solutions we offer."
*** A complete list of the objects that formed the shortlist of the award can be found on the WAF website.
