The World Architecture Festival WAF has been going on for more than ten years: its history began in Barcelona, then the festival moved to the opposite side of the Earth to Singapore, returned to Europe, stayed for a couple of years in Berlin. Now WAF took place in Amsterdam.
In 2018, the “Kampung Admiralty” multifunctional residential complex in Singapore with luxurious hanging gardens on multi-level terraces and a roof, built according to the design of the WOHA bureau became the “Best Building of the Year”.
Best in the Future Project of the Year category was the Medellin River Parks in Medellin, Colombia, with a master plan designed by Sebastian Monsalve and Juan David Hoyos.
The winner of the title of "Best Landscape of the Year" was the nature trail in the mountains near Barcelona according to the project
Batlle i roig arquitectura
A complete list of all WAF-2018 winners is presented
here. ***
It is easy to imagine that we are talking about thousands of applicants who a priori differ in style, scale, budget and many more parameters that determine the level of development of regional architectural and construction markets in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Australia and Africa. Developing an effective system for collecting, preliminary expert and final assessment of the entire array of project materials is a titanic task, as well as the preparation of the festival itself. We must pay tribute to the organizers - they cope with both missions and quite successfully. There are more than 130 thousand architects in the organizers' database, the number of applications is growing every year. So, in 2018, 1,500 applications were submitted, of which experts selected 536 projects and buildings for the final presentations in Amsterdam.
The statistics of WAF participants is interesting. Most of the applications - 37% - came from European architects. Next, by a small margin, are Asian bureaus (29%). Then, a significantly smaller percentage (13%) is shown by participants from Australia and New Zealand. The result of North American and Canadian architects looks rather unexpected - only 7% of the total. Probably, this is the resource that the organizers will have to master, it is possible that through the next move - rumors about such a possibility have been circulating for a long time. Turkey, Central Asia, Africa, Central and South America give 3% each. Russia, which has appeared for the first time in statistical data, can be considered a subject of special pride - 2% of the total number of participants.
Relying on the ambitiousness and faith of each architect in their own strengths works, even taking into account the significant ticket price. Thanks to the combination of creativity and pragmatism, the festival exists mainly at the expense of the architects themselves, who not only pay a little less than a thousand euros for the project submitted to the competition, but if they are successful - getting into the shortlist of the competition, they pay two tickets to the festival for another one and a half thousands each. Such a high price tag, on the one hand, serves as a guarantor of the quality of projects submitted to the competition - the author must be confident enough in him to go for such expenses, on the other hand, serves as a "safety cushion" for organizers in case of difficulties with the involvement of commercial partners.
As with any competition where personal participation takes place, artistry and mastery of preparation and presentation of material is of great importance in the WAF Finals. Of course, it does not overshadow the quality of architectural solutions in the eyes of professional jury members, which usually include laureates of past competitions, but it has a significant impact on the judges' assessments. The main thing that works is the clarity of the presentation of the main design decisions, the placement of emphasis on those aspects that are considered the most important at WAF for modern socially and eco-responsible architecture. So the presentation of projects at the festival is a cross between a performance on the show "Got talent" and the defense of a doctoral dissertation in 15 minutes. As a result, architects compete not only in architectural solutions, but also in artistry and conformism, more precisely in the ability to vividly and convincingly demonstrate and prove their adherence to the principles professed at WAF.
Despite the objective difficulties, primarily related to the need to present projects in English, our compatriots confidently enter the international arena and every year they represent Russian architecture on it more and more convincingly. This year, their number has reached a record number of 13 projects. You can read more about the finalist projects
here. Moreover, for a number of bureaus, participation in the festival has become part of the PR-promotion policy and the development of presentation skills of employees.
We talked with several participants and guests of WAF-2018 and asked them to share their impressions of the festival, what they evaluate positively, and what, on the contrary, they would like to change. ***
Our selection opens with a commentary by Nikita Yavein, the Russian winner of the WAF-2018. This time, Studio 44 won the Culture. Project”with the concept of the Museum and Exhibition Complex“Defense and Siege of Leningrad”.
Nikita Yavein
Studio 44
“Our experience of participating in several WAFs: in Singapore, twice in Berlin and now in Amsterdam, allows us to evaluate the specifics of the format and the vector of development of the festival. This is a rather specific event that mixes global trends, regional ambitions and commercial considerations. The festival is influenced by the venue and global architectural trends. Asian WAF was the most widespread. I don't know what the reason is, the space or the active interest from the local professional community, but I have never seen as many people as there were in Singapore. Moving to Europe made the atmosphere of the festival more relaxed, less pretentious. There are still many participants from Asia and Africa, but the overall impression has become more intimate. Perhaps this was due to the fact that here WAF is forced to compete with European architectural awards, primarily with
the Mies van der Rohe Prize.
Over the past few years, the composition of the participants in the World Festival has changed. The category of "architectural stars" has somehow imperceptibly disappeared. The former have either died or retired and no longer design, and this status is somehow hardly applicable to the current leaders of the profession. Even the word "star" in relation to selected architects, in my opinion, continues to be used only in Russia. There are practically no pronounced tendencies and absolute leaders. And in this situation, the WAF works like a mirror reflecting the general blurring of the landmarks.
Even WAF's well-known commitment to socially responsible and green architecture no longer works. Each participant now focuses on this in his presentation, often speculating on eco- and social topics. As a result, the jury has to carefully monitor the sincerity and truthfulness of the use of these principles in the presented projects. And they do it at times, asking questions that test whether you really believe in these principles and how consistently you apply them.
We can say that now the obligatory elements of the presentation include a story about the research component, which somewhat dries up the presentation, but makes it possible to understand the “inner workings” of the bureau.
The absence of dominant tendencies and criteria can be traced especially clearly when choosing the "Best Building" and "Best Project of the Year", where the usual rule of finding a balance between the points of view of different judges works. This is usually politics. But in judging individual nominations, the chance for a non-trivial, bold decision still remains. And this game of heads and tails is the most interesting. It matters in which nomination, in which company the project appeared and who will be on the jury.
We were not very lucky in this regard. We presented the project of the Museum "Defense and Siege of Leningrad" in the nomination "Culture. Project”, which was the most massive - 16 projects. The competition between projects was very strong. I think that the unexpectedness, the unusual stylistics and imagery of our project worked in our favor, which is always highly appreciated. I have seen more than once the presentation of memorial projects at WAF, and most often they caused tension among the jury, since they relied on strong emotional overtones and the jury members felt that they were being manipulated. We deliberately did not pedalize the theme of the blockade, focusing on the originality of the approach to the formation and the image of the city defending and breaking through to the outside in the form of houses arranged in a circle. It was important for us to convey the idea that in our case the image is directly related to the function. And also visually restrained we approached the pictorial row and the video, which is somewhat reminiscent of a computer game.
At the same time, our restraint created a strong associative and emotional reaction. And already during the presentation, we felt a response from the jury members and the audience. This became clear from the questions that the judges asked us, and especially from the reaction that followed after the end of the presentation. Ten architects from China, Canada, Turkey, Iran and others came up with congratulations to Ivan Kozhin and Ilya Grigoriev, who spoke about the project. countries. And the next day, WAF visitors recognized them and congratulated them on their strong performance and winning the nomination.
Also, an enthusiastic reaction and congratulations were addressed to Alena Amelkovich, who presented the project
Educational center "Sirius" and coped with this task brilliantly, despite the fact that she participated in the WAF for the first time.
We have good statistics. We calculated that out of nine projects submitted for the festival competition, three became winners in their nominations. I think we will continue to participate, submitting one or two projects, which allows us to prepare with high quality and will definitely involve our young architects in presentations, for whom speaking at the WAF gives invaluable experience and increases presentation skills. ***
The SPEECH bureau is one of the regular participants of the WAF festival, this year five projects submitted for the competition at once and all of them reached the final, which makes the opinion of the head of the bureau Sergei Tchoban about the importance of WAF for architectural practice in Russia especially valuable.
Sergei Choban
SPEECH
“The WAF festival has its own specifics, first of all, associated with paid participation for architects, as well as with the well-known lack of opportunities for searching and communicating with potential customers - in comparison with MIPIM or EXPOREAL. In my opinion, these features predetermine the attitude towards WAF on the part of many Western colleagues. That is why so few, for example, German bureaus submit their projects to the competition. And if I worked only in Germany, most likely I would not participate in it. But in Russia, starting from the very first festivals in Barcelona, when Russian architects began to submit their projects and appear on the shortlists, a certain reverence has developed towards WAF. Every year the number of Russian participants is increasing, at the same time the importance of being shortlisted or winning in a nomination is growing. This confirms the rather high status of WAF in the Russian architectural and construction community. Therefore, our bureau participates and will continue to participate in the festival.
The only thing that I plan to change is the very format of the presentation of our projects. I am sure that participation in such a status event and the opportunity to present our projects to the international jury will be very useful for the young employees of our bureau. This will give them the opportunity to practice their knowledge of the English language, and most importantly, their skills in public presentation and protection of design solutions. Moreover, I believe that it is important for the SPEECH office to develop the moment of employee involvement in the company's success, as well as belonging to the global architectural community, which is certainly felt here.
Among the features of WAF, which I can note as positive, I will single out attention to small projects and social aspects, which allows attracting, through prizes and PR, media attention to those topics and concepts that could, due to their modest scale and budget, remain unnoticed.
Nevertheless, when choosing projects for submission to the WAF competition, we are guided rather by considerations of the importance and interest of this or that project for ourselves, and, perhaps, not by the WAF conjuncture. And we hope to do so in the future.” ***
Russian bureaus most often exhibit projects at WAF. Realizations are rare, especially in such specific nominations as “Healthcare facilities”. But the first building of the Medical Cluster at the Skolkovo IC, which opened in September, became a pass for Asadov's bureau to the WAF-2018 final.
Andrey Asadov
AB ASADOV
“I had a long gap between my current and previous participation in the WAF. In 2010, we defended futuristic projects of islands and floating hotels in Barcelona, and this year we showed the implementation of an innovative medical center in Skolkovo. I have not been to Singapore or Berlin, so it is difficult for me to assess the way the festival has gone over the years. The main thing is an invariable format, showing architecture through the presentations of the authors themselves, without a traditional exhibition. Instead of presenting projects in the form of pictures, the focus here is on the verbal presentation. Of course, the organizers have provided interactive screens where all projects from the shortlist are uploaded and everyone can watch them in large format on monitors or on their smartphones. On the one hand, it is more convenient to look at architecture on paper tablets, but, on the other hand, such exhibitions are too resource-intensive and not very effective. And most importantly, tablets do not at all give the powerful effect that a personal presentation of the author of the project to the jury guarantees. The fact that during three days you can hear many speeches of eminent architects, heads of top bureaus, find out how the idea was born and evolved, what important points and accents are highlighted by the author himself, look into the architectural kitchen, find out many details in 10 minutes of project presentation, to me seems most valuable. Here architects tell architects about their work and answer highly professional questions. This is a special process that gives a sense of belonging and professional unity. It's nice that architects don't lose interest in the festival. Despite critical reviews, the number of participants is only growing."
Another experienced WAF participant, the Wowhaus bureau, this year presented to the competition a provocative project for the reconstruction of the Moscow monorail, which ended up in the Master Plan nomination.
Anna Ischenko
WOWHAUS
“This is not the first time our bureau has participated in the WAF. And the most important impression is that there are more and more Russian projects and Russian architects at WAF, which cannot but rejoice. Of course, we still have few prizes. And here I would like to separately congratulate Nikita Yavein on his brilliant victory with the project of the Blockade Museum, in which magnificent architecture is combined with a socially and culturally significant theme. For WAF, this is a win-win combination. Like any contemporary cultural event, an architectural festival is subject to certain political influences. Here, the priority is often given to projects in which the social aspect prevails over the project one. But in the case of the Museum of the Blockade, everything was connected and the jury could not but give the victory to the best project in the nomination.
Unfortunately, we have to admit that participation in the festival is still too expensive and organizationally difficult for many Russian architects. And if the financial issue can still be dealt with, the presentation in English is still a stumbling block. Nevertheless, I would very much like as many Russian architects as possible, and first of all, ordinary architects, and not only managers, to be able to come here and take part in this event, listen to presentations, and see the whole range of projects presented. It is clear that everyone looks at pictures on the Internet, but in order to get a feel for the professional agenda, it is important to see how projects are presented, how they are presented, how accents are placed. We in the bureau will definitely continue to participate in WAF and involve their authors - our employees - in the presentation of projects so that they can plunge into this atmosphere, communicate, watch and listen."
The Archimatika bureau followed a fairly common scenario and, after a guest scouting last year in 2018, submitted three projects to the competition at once, one of which was shortlisted.
Alexander Popov
ARCHIMATICS
“Last year we came to the WAF in Berlin as guests. We really liked the format of the competition and the composition of the finalists. There was no "ballast" in the short list, only worthy and interesting projects, some controversial, but absolutely everything - high-quality and relevant. We decided to participate and this year we sent three projects, one of which reached the final. We came to Amsterdam as participants to present to the jury our project of the multifunctional residential complex “Smart Plaza”, which had changed its marketing name and was already called “White Lines” at the time of project defense. We went through the crucible of difficult and often provocative questions that accompany each defense of the project in the WAF final. An open discussion, when you can get feedback from colleagues, understand the reaction to your work, maybe even see some of its weak points - this competition favorably distinguishes from all the others, where the evaluation and discussion of projects takes place behind closed doors and the authors can do so and not find out why one job was awarded and the other was not.
We carefully prepared our presentation, taking into account the impressions of the defense of projects at the Berlin WAF, in which the authors and jury members paid special attention to how the object affects the city, how it helps in solving some urban or social problems. Our complex integrates housing, offices, retail and entertainment. And we specially prepared a study of our audience, those people who will live or visit our complex, on the subject of what services they need and included them in the project program. We also used the results of the research in the development of apartment layouts, which immediately began to be bought up on the market. We talked about all this in detail in the presentation, deliberately slightly reducing the presentation of architectural and planning solutions, thereby provoking the jury to questions about this in order to avoid delving into those areas where it would be a little more difficult for us to explain our decisions in English.
Nevertheless, we lost, but lost to a very worthy competitor - an office complex from bureau Aedes. This, of course, is not yet the level of our market. There are not enough resources to implement such bold decisions, with the most complex spatial organization and distribution of functions in height.
If we talk about the trends that are felt at WAF, the most important thing is dissimilarity, unrepeatability. When hundreds of projects from all over the world pass in front of you, many of which in one way or another use successful techniques that you have already seen and know well, unique solutions that take into account and respond to their current challenges, and not just utilitarian ones, acquire special value and importance. or other common tasks. It is very interesting to record these techniques, but not for copying, but in order not to repeat them in your projects.
The festival is developing, just as the whole world architecture is developing. All changes that have taken place on a global scale are perfectly visible and read on the WAF. I think this is his strongest point. This is why we are going to feel what has changed, to see what new has arisen. We can agree with something, we can say that we like more what happened a few years ago, but an architect must know and understand what is happening in the profession on a global scale. ***
Representatives of DNK ag bureau visited WAF for the first time this year, so their impressions of the festival are especially valuable.
Natalia Sidorova
DNK ag
“This is our first WAF. Of course, we have heard a lot about the festival from friends who took part in it or came as guests. The personal impression is different from how it was presented in absentia. Less pathos and more professionalism. It's nice that there are many familiar faces, not only Russian architects, but also well-known Western colleagues.
What I didn't quite like was the lack of an exhibition of projects, where one could see and compare competing works. Unfortunately, the electronic format, in the form of a virtual catalog on one screen, is not so convenient.
The presentation of projects from the shortlist made a strong impression. They only had time to follow the schedule and move from one pavilion to another, in 17 pavilions there were defenses at the same time throughout the festival and the choice was sometimes difficult. It's fun to watch the presentations on their own. How each author submits his idea and his work. Some are looking for some unexpected moves, someone just presents a selection of pictures. But, in addition to the visual series, it is of great importance how convincingly the author talks about the project and answers questions. An important and valuable impression that the projects are presented and evaluated by real professionals, this is felt by the level of presentation, topic and detail of the discussion.
It seemed to us that at WAF the choice of the jury does not always depend on the architecture as such, but on the theme, social, environmental focus of the project, its regional component means a lot - they try to cover all regions. There are, of course, "stellar" projects, such as the Museum in Cape Town by Thomas Heatherwick, who could not help but win in the "old and new" section. But an unknown project here can also win if the project contains all the necessary components and the author can convincingly tell about the ideas and meanings inherent in the project and the "alignment" in the nomination is successful.
At the festival, everyone can find something of their own, but everyone talks about very understandable things: what they managed to do in their projects and what they didn’t. These are our professional problems that all architects think about, talk about and solve. ***
The successful Russian company RTDA took part in the WAF for the first time and immediately entered the shortlist with a project for the development of the Moscow University campus, which was nominated for Education.
Dina Dridze
RTDA
“We are participating in the WAF for the first time, to be honest, we expected a little different from the festival both in terms of work with the exhibition space and stands, as well as in terms of organizing presentations. WAF looks rather democratic and less pretentious than, for example, MIPIM. At the same time, in my opinion, there could be more architecture at the architectural festival, for which all other elements of the exposition: the stands of partners, exhibitions of laureates of parallel awards, and so on, would be perceived as an accompanying format.
As for presentations, this already difficult process, when you have to tell all the most important things about the project in 10 minutes and answer the picky questions of the jury in 10 minutes, was greatly complicated by the lack of sound insulation between the pavilions in which the defense took place and the general exhibition hall. As a result, it was extremely difficult to concentrate and not be distracted by voices and music coming from all directions, albeit muffled. But we did it! And we received a very favorable opinion of the jury about our work.
The organizers took a very responsible approach to the issues of technical preparation, providing for a mandatory run of presentations for all before the start of each festival day. They also strictly adhered to the timing set for the presentation of projects. It was especially convenient not only for the speakers, but also for the audience, who could plan their time and be in time for all the presentations they were interested in.
I also really liked the professional jury. To be able to tell colleagues about my project and see their interest and deep understanding of the issues and problems that we had to solve is just a holiday for me. We often present projects at different events and are accustomed to the fact that at first they react to spectacular graphics and only then delve into the content. Everything was different here. The jury members were perfectly prepared, knew the projects that were presented, and knew what to ask the authors about. It was a highly professional conversation.
On the recommendation of the festival's technical committee, our project was nominated for Educational Projects. Of course, we did not argue, since we assumed that there were probably several more projects of a similar scale and were preparing for a serious discussion of urban planning issues.
In this nomination we were shortlisted, which is an achievement in itself! It just turned out that all the projects competing with us are at the stage of volumetric design and are very small in comparison with the MSU campus. Together with our 240 hectares of the scientific and technological valley of Moscow State University and adjacent territories, we looked like a hippopotamus among herons alongside other projects in the Education nomination. Nevertheless, both the jury and the audience reacted to our project with interest and positiveness. It was especially pleasant that almost all Russian WAF participants came to support us.
I think we will continue to participate in the WAF, presenting projects in various nominations. We have several very interesting and socially significant projects under development in our bureau, so I think there will be something to show”. ***
This year, the new generation of Russian architects at WAF was represented by the IND Architects bureau team, who submitted two applications in the Competition Projects nomination. Both of them reached the final, so the team had to compete not only with foreign colleagues, but also with itself.
Amir Idiatulin
IND architects
“Traveling to WAF-2018 as participants is a real challenge for the studio, and we took it up. Two of our projects were shortlisted for the award - the concept of the Klenovy Boulevard metro station, not far from the Kolomenskoye Park in Moscow, and the project for the redevelopment of a water tower in the Moscow region.
The IND Architects team began preparing for the presentation of projects at WAF-2018 six months before the event. The past experience of visiting WAF has shown that the presentations of the participants are not just a story about projects, but a real show. To perform freely and confidently, for example, I took additional English lessons and worked with a stage teacher.
It took 3-4 months to prepare a 15-minute presentation, including specially edited videos. The first part was devoted to the analysis and history of each of the projects. Then they talked about the figurative component of our solutions, including important details and technical nuances. This was followed by a video sequence that gives an idea of the object from different angles with parallel comments from the authors about spatial solutions and functional content.
We received a huge boost of energy and inspiration for further work. The architecture of the future is being created at WAF. The best world-class projects are concentrated in one space, here you can also communicate with their authors. It was important for us to get feedback on our projects and understand in which direction modern world architecture is developing."
