New Zealand practice shortlisted for 2022 WAFX Award
New Zealand architecture practice Warren and Mahoney are among twenty projects shortlisted in the World Architecture Festivals's 20 future projects, addressing societal and environmental challenges and trends.
The WAFX Award celebrates international proposals that embrace cutting-edge design and address major world issues, ranging from tackling the climate emergency to building community resilience.
The North East Link by New Zealand architecture firm Warren and Mahoney together with two Australian practices BKK Architects and Taylor Cullity Lethlean (T.C.L) is among twenty international projects that have been shortlisted for the WAFX Award as part of the 2022 World Architecture Festival.
Located in Melbourne, Australia, the proposed design consortium aims to enhance existing connections and provide new links to stitch communities together. Warren and Mahoney, BKK, T.C.L, and Indigenous design experts, Greenaway Architects collaborated to develop integrated transport and urban design solutions connecting the wider area whilst utilising sustainable design methods to ensure the project will ‘touch the earth lightly’.
Other projects that made the WAFX shortlist include two projects by young international design and architectural practice Built by Associative Data (BAD). One of these projects The Tower of Life (pictured right) is an iconic tower proposed for Dakar, Senegal, symbolising Africa’s future role in leading a global design agenda that champions ecology, bio-computation, material engineering, decentralised economy and sustainable development.
The shortlist also features a cultural venue co-designed with an indigenous prairie community in Canada by Oxbow Architecture to celebrate community and strengthen cultural traditions, and a nature and people first masterplan for a brownfield site in Toronto by a coalition of practices, including Henning Larsen Architects, KPMB, and SLA Architects.
A number of shortlisted projects show the power of architecture to marry the physical and digital worlds in the future. These range from the mega YTL Arena Complex by Grimshaw in Bristol, UK, to a Graduation Hall for Sol Plaatje University by Savage+Dodd Architects in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Programme director Paul Finch comments: “Big challenges require big commitment and fresh thinking. These future projects show that architects across the world are responding to complex problems in imaginative ways — with the bonus of some design delight.”
WAF returns this year as an in-person event held in Lisbon, from 30 November–2 December 2022. Live interviews with the architects behind the 20 WAFX shortlisted projects will take place at WAF, and the overall WAFX winner will be announced at the Gala Dinner in Lisbon, alongside other accolades including World Building of the Year, Landscape of the Year, Future Project of the Year and Interior of the Year.
Fifteen New Zealand projects have been shortlisted for the 2022 World Architecture Festival awards.
Click here to view the full shortlist for this year’s WAFX projects.