“If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you,” were eleven words expertly aimed at the neck of the world by a 16-year-old Greta Thunberg in 2019. Galvanised and tenacious, a swarm of estimated 4 million people worldwide hit the pavement on what would become the largest climate strike in history – 1.4 million were school-aged children.
Now in its 16th year, WAF is the only global architecture awards program where shortlisted entrants present their projects live to a jury of world-leading industry figureheads in the presence of their peers. Representing the best in contemporary architecture, the projects have been shortlisted across Completed Buildings, Future Projects and Landscape categories.
An Australian project to build a $3 million night-sky lookout where the Milky Way passes directly overhead will compete in what has been dubbed the Olympics of architecture.
Woods Bagot CEO Nik Karalis observes that the WAF awards are further recognition of their ‘people first’ design approach, adding that architectural awards juries are increasingly rewarding human-centric projects with strong environmental vision and credentials.