Over two thousand architects, designers and clients traveled to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore this past week for the World Architecture Festival (WAF). The WAF is the largest live awards festival in the world dedicated to architecture. Each architect who was shortlisted for a competition presented their entry in front of a panel of judges and the audience were able to learn not only about countless new and existing projects, but also the judges' opinions of these projects. Hundreds of architecture firms from over 50 countries competed in 27 different categories during the festival. The big winners included The Chapel in Vietnam, designed by a 21studio winning "Building of the Year" as well as the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Canada, designed by 5468796 Architecture + Number TEN Architectural Group, winning "Future Project of the Year". Other winners include the PINCH in China, a library and community center for a village destroyed by an earthquake in 2012, and the Alex Monroe Studio in London for the Wood Excellence Prize.
The Chapel, located in Hochiminh City, Vietnam, is designed to be a community center for an area where the people, and especially children, don’t have a place to congregate and celebrate occasions such as weddings and holidays. According the to the World Architecture Festival, “The Chapel takes advantages of materials from the owner’s previous projects such as steel frames, metal sheets..". Moreover, by using steel as the main structure material, it not only makes the foundation lighter, but also helps shorten the construction period, and save cost as well. The portal frame is made by dual 40×80 steel columns with 40x40 steel braces connecting to white painted metal sheets; so from a distance look, the building appears as a white chapel. However, the available steels are not strong enough; columns and beams are considered to stabilize the entire building. A tree shaped steel column with 90x90 steel bars is applied to be the only structure that appears inside the Chapel.”
A gallery of The Chapel and other award winners can be found here. Next year’s World Architecture Festival will be held from November 4th through the 6th at the Suntec Convention and Exhibition Center in Singapore.
Sources: cnn.com, World Architecture Festival
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