First three 2016 INSIDE: World Festival of Interiors category winners revealed

The INSIDE: World Festival of Interiors is back again for 2016! As the World Architecture Festival's just-as-competitive sister event, the competition celebrates the best projects in the international interior-design scene from within the last 12 months. 

From the 63 shortlisted projects, the first three INSIDE category winners have been announced (The remaining six winners will be revealed tomorrow). By the end of the competition on November 18, one project will win the coveted World Interior of the Year award.

Check out the INSIDE Day One winners below.

Bars & Restaurants: Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, Rachel's Burger, Shanghai, China

Neri&Hu envisioned this diner-style restaurant as “a porous space where the boundaries between inside and outside are blurred and the exterior walls can be fully opened to extend the perceived and actual boundaries of the space.” 

The jury felt that “the approach to the narrow alley site and the reinterpretation of the Californian ‘route one’ diner was well judged without becoming a pastiche”. Neri&Hu were also cited for their choice of materials, most particularly the handmade tiles from 1930s Shanghai diners — which the jury cited as ‘refined and well-detailed’.”

Offices: Woods Bagot Architects, Paramount by The Office Space, Sydney, Australia

Architecture firm Woods Bagot transformed the upper-ground level of the historic Paramount House in Sydney into a co-working office space that includes 22 suites for “creative and niche business activity”. The jury praised the project as a “paradigm shift for co-working [which] achieved a high-quality outcome rarely seen before”. They thought the project represented a “refreshing contrast in office design, where highly crafted spatial, detailing and materiality strategies have been composed with an old world dignity.’”

Retail: Hangzhou AN Interior Design, Black Cant System - HEIKE fashion brand concept store, Hangzhou, China.

Designed by Hangzhou AN Interior Design, the Black Cant System - HEIKE concept store features a black-shell interior that combines an art+design exhibition space along with a furniture+fashion store on the second floor. The jury described the project as a “profoundly tectonic approach [that is] mysteriously moving and refined. The discovery of the tapered volumes in a second floor retail space and the reference to war and peace via Normandy landings was surprising and thought provoking.”

All photos and quoted text courtesy of the 2016 INSIDE: World Festival of Interiors.