The World Architecture Festival (WAF) has announced that this year’s WAF awards programme will feature a ‘Wood Excellence Prize’ for the first time. Sponsored by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), any type of project can be entered; the only criterion is that wood is an integral part of the project. Entry into the prize is free and if shortlisted, the designers or architects responsible will be invited to present their project to the prize judges live at the festival. The winner will be announced at the WAF awards ceremony on Friday, October 3, 2014. Architect, designer and a champion of wood in architecture, Matteo Thun, will chair the jury for the Wood Excellence Prize.
Commenting on the award, Matteo Thun said: “Wood, as a renewable resource material, is indispensable in architecture and design. Our daily challenge is to achieve projects and products that are sustainable, of timeless beauty, pure and simple, but at the same time technically and environmentally innovative. The new Wood Excellence Prize will reinforce this intention and I am very pleased to be involved in this very prestigious event.”
The WAF awards sit at the heart of the festival, and will see practices from around the world compete across 28 individual award categories for global recognition. Competing across three category groups of completed buildings, landscape projects and future projects, previous WAF award entrants have ranged from renowned global architectural firms to small local practices. Architects of every shortlisted project are invited to attend the festival to give a live presentation to a panel of judges, asserting their case for why their project should win. The winners of each category are put forward to compete for the coveted World Building of the Year award, presided over by the festival’s ‘super-jury’, with the presentation of the award being the culmination of WAF 2014.
