Day one of the World Architecture Festival and its sister project Inside kicked off today at the Marina Bay Sands convention centre in Singapore.

New Zealand was represented firstly by RTA Studio, who presented twice: in the Future Projects Leisure-led category, in collaboration with Spi.rus Architecture, and in the Shopping category, where director Richard Naish presented the Mackelvie Street, Ponsonby retail development, beating out interesting schemes from China, Turkey and Iran for a well-earned highly commended before losing out to the Swedish firm Windgardh Arkitektkontor, who won the category with Emporia.

Also in attendance today were Richard Francis-Jones, from Australian firm fjmt, and Lindsay Mackie, from New Zealand’s Archimedia, who collaborated on the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki.

Francis-Jones presented the project at the Inside Festival, and was up against stiff competition in the fluid form of Zaha Hadid Architects’ Heydar Aliyev Centre in Azerbaijan. Hadid’s admittedly incredible-looking structure had, arguably, a weaker contextual narrative – as discerned in the 20-minute presentation format of the competition – than did the New Zealand gallery. To paraphrase the Turkish architect presenting Heydar Aliyev, it was to be a forward-looking cultural project – there was little desire to reference the history of Soviet association that ended in 1993. However, this client-directed tabula rasa directive, despite the remarkable form of the building, seemed to affect the judges less than the Auckland Art Gallery, which, despite spending considerable time ankles deep in the mire of the Environment Court, had in its favour a deep consideration of heritage, landscape, culture, transparency and display, and an emphasis on quality of materials and workmanship. Interestingly, the two buildings will face off again tomorrow in the culture section of the World Architecture Festival.

In other day one news, it’s safe to say our Australian brethren faired well at these international awards. Cox Architects picked up three category wins, for the Left-Over Space House, the Brisbane Ferry Terminal Post-Flood Recovery in the Future Projects Infrastructure category, and the National Maritime Museum of China.

On Day two, Irving Smith Jack Architects will present twice, in the New and Old Category and the Villa Categories. Good luck to them

Category-wining projects at Inside and WAF are in contention for the supreme award, which will be conferred on Friday.

For a full list of all award winners from the festival, visit the website.

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