World Architecture Festival 2019: Day One winners revealed

World Architecture Festival, one of the design community's most anticipated annual events, kicked off in Amsterdam this morning with a packed roster of events and speakers scheduled for the next three days. 

Day one was filled with live presentations of dozens of shortlisted projects by their architectural designers and culminated in the announcement of the first round of WAF Award winners. Besides a few household names, like Heatherwick Studios, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Tabanlıoğlu Architects, and WilkinsonEyre, the list of Day One winners impresses with fresh talent and emerging practices from around the world.

Read on for today's winning projects, and stay tuned for the Day Two selections tomorrow as well as the winner of the coveted World Building of the Year title on Friday.

Completed Building Housing: Nextoffice - Cedrus Residential, Tehran, Iran (cover image)

Jury notes: "Cedrus Residential holistically takes on social, political, environmental, contextual and living norms in Tehran, Iran. The project beautifully critiques the approach to increased sensitivities in Tehran while critiquing the language of urban form and the manifestation of form to the public realm. Cedrus Residential successfully asks the question: what can architecture become in Iran, challenging the political dogma of expression while respecting social norms. It is a wonderful, holistic and intellectually challenging project or world wide merit."

Completed Building Display: Heatherwick Studio - Vessel, New York, USA

Jury notes: "People engage with this platform in a new and innovative way. It has clear structural innovation which offers all communities in the city the potential to devise new creative moments in peoples lives."

Completed Building Civic & Community: Condition Lab - School of Architecture CUHK & UAL Studio - School of Architecture and Urban Planning GZU - Gaobu Book House, Hunan Province, China

Jury notes: "Gaobu Book House is totally intertwined with the community - a project that goes well beyond the actual building and demonstrates excellence of process. The engagement of two universities departments over five years, working to regenerate and stitch a community back together - like many rural towns and villages the working population has left behind their children with the grandparents, and this building provides the place to learn and play. Highly sensitive to local needs and skills, the project has enabled new thinking into how a building can be made using traditional techniques."

Completed Building Office: FCHA - Vanke Liuxiandong Design Community - A4+B2 Plot Design, Shenzhen, China

Jury notes: "A revolutionary project in that they built a new paradigm for the future of office buildings. Highly sustainable and transformed corporate environment into one that welcomes the public. Highly social - plan facilitates serendipitous social interaction. They turned a commercial brief, through inventive design and low cost construction into a commercial success, a great model. The jury were struck by the exceptional quality of the project and excellent presentation."

Completed Building Culture: Civic architects (lead architect), Braaksma & Roos Architectenbureau, Inside Outside / Petra Blaisse - LocHal Public Library, Tilburg, the Netherlands

Jury notes: "A strong, sustainable approach to convert a former industrial facility into a civic building. It takes on the potential of the big void and turns it into the marvellous, heroic central space of the library. The fine details and the use of textiles create the necessary intimacy for the human scale, while putting in value of the old steel structure."

Completed Building House: TERROIR - Castle Cove House, NSW, Australia

Jury notes: "What initially seems to be a simple integration of house into landscape is so much more. With the diversity and complexity of space there is a visual shattering of boundaries between inside and out. The use of well-tested 'architectural instruments and tools' define and punctuate the concept. A rigorous process of thought and organically responsive design enriches the functionality with the poetic. The moments of joy just keep coming."

Completed Building Transport: Integrated Design Associates - MACTAN CEBU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TERMINAL 2, Cebu, Philippines

Jury notes: "This is a simple and elegant new airport that uses many locally sourced materials. It is integrated into the local area through the development of a local hub and a landscape plan. The internal spaces are light and uncluttered and the design is capable of future extension. It is clearly popular with the local community and this established a memorable travels experiences."

Completed Building Production, Energy & Recycling: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners - The Macallan Distillery and Visitor Experience, Craigellachie, United Kingdom

Jury notes: "The project is the "distillation" of a complex industrial process translated into a modular building program. It is masterfully embedded in the landscape through an undulating timber roof with grass cover that takes its inspiration from historic references. In terms of the category of production, energy and recycling, the building uses biomass for energy production and uses the waste products for the distillation process as recycled fuel thereby looking at waste to energy cycles in terms of the production cycle."

Completed Building Sport: Anna Noguera, Javier Fernandez - Turó de la Peira's Sports Center and Layout of the Interior Urban Block, Barcelona, Spain

Jury notes: "A socially transformative project, re-qualifying a tight neighbourhood and giving it a heart. An outstanding use of resources with a sustainable ethos and a magical place to be!"

Completed Building Schools: HIBINOSEKKEI / Youji no Shiro / KIDS DESIGN LABO - YM Nursery, Yonago, Japan

Jury notes: "The YM Nursery demonstrates huge sensitivity to the experience of young children, from the organisation of the building as an open pavilion, to the use of wood, stone, fire and water. The project embraces nature holistically in its concept and detail. The previous building materials have been re-vised in thoughtful ways to further enhance the haptic experience of the children. It is beautifully detailed, calm with attention to the scale of small children and a palpable sense of home."

Completed Building New & Old: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris - The Bower, London, United Kingdom

Jury notes: "Clever realisation of existing to create unique office space knitting together city fabric with minimal 'acupuncture' like intervention. Subtle use of change of level. Overall light touch feel which lets the strength of the original buildings read."

Future Project Civic: HCMA Architecture + Design - Harry Jerome Community Recreation Centre, Vancouver, Canada

Jury notes: "Accepting the programmatic requirements of closed boxes for ball courts and gymnastics, the building is fragmented with in-between spaces captured for play and civic life."

Future Project Infrastructure: WilkinsonEyre / Morphis - Shenzhen Bay Avenue, Shenzhen, China

Jury notes: "This project creates pedestrian life on different levels. It has a dynamic, fluid, functionally justified shape that weaves between the buildings to the water. There is active urban intervention creating a diverse public space."

Future Project Leisure Led Development: Tabanlıoğlu Architects - Tersane Halic - Halic Shipyards, Istanbul, Turkey

Jury notes: "Convincing at all scales from masterplan to details. The site specifically captures the spirit of the place in its use and materiality while allowing future flexibility."

Future Project Masterplanning: ADEPT, KARRES EN BRANDS, Transsolar, Büro Happold, Kraft - THE CONNECTED CITY Oberbillwerder, Hamburg, Germany

Jury notes: "This project has comprehensive and well-throughout strategies which is replicable as a masterplan prototype. It has seamless integration with blue and green and social infrastructure. It is sensitive with development, phasing, scale that is relevant to context."

Future Project Office: Modern Office of Design + Architecture - Attabotics Headquarters, Calgary, Canada

Jury notes: "This is an extraordinary building set into an extraordinary landscape. The concept is perfectly thought through and developed into a beautiful building that sets new standards for modern manufacturing the jury was particularly impressed by the interiors and the vertical integration of elements of the buildings."