With the 2017 World Architecture Festival (WAF) starting in just under two weeks, the event has announced its fringe program celebrating the city of Berlin with diverse programs. All architects and designers who will be attending from around the world can take a quick look at this year's extensive Fringe schedule including Prize ceremonies, architect tours, the WAF10 & Shortlist Party and many more...

This year’s programme responds to the Festival’s theme, 'Performance', and will include keynote addresses, discussions and debates examining the topic of performance from the perspectives of housing, public spaces, festivals, cultural institutions and new technologies. 

In addition to the WAF awards and talks programme, delegates will have ample opportunity to make new contacts and extend their networks with an action-packed Fringe programme that includes architect tours, parties and a celebratory gala dinner to end the three day festival.

The annual World Architecture Festival is taking place this year at the Berlin Arena, between 15-17 November, and World Architecture Community is an official media partner for the event.

In this context, World Architecture Community, in collaboration with WAF, offers to its Professional Members 10% discounted tickets over regular festival prices during registration! All you have to do is to upgrade your World Architecture Community membership to Professional here or visit your WAC Settings page and send us ([email protected]) an email to get your promo code for your WAF registration!

Image © Terrence Zhang - Project: Gymnasium of the New Campus of Tianjin shortlisted in the buildings in use category, for the architectural photography awards

Take a closer look at highlights of the Fringe programme below:

Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards - Event partner Arcaid has announced the 20 finalists for its Architectural Photography Awards 2017, an annual celebration of the best architectural photography. Each of the images on the shortlist will be displayed at the Sto stand in WAF’s Festival Hall, with visitors able to vote for their favourite before the overall winner is announced at the WAF Gala Dinner. 

Architect Tours - Delegates can discover Berlin’s diverse architectural identity with guided tours led by local experts, Niche. The tour programme runs from Tuesday 13 – Saturday 18 November. Highlights include a tour of the city’s iconic building sites, the physical manifestation of the architectural arms race between the East and West of the city, visits to some of Berlin’s most interesting repurposed cultural spaces and famous art galleries.

AR Emerging Architecture Awards – The prestigious £10,000 prize recognises and supports talented young architects and designers at a key stage in their career, promoting their work to a worldwide audience. This year the Architectural Review will present the winner of the award at WAF. Previous winners have included Shigeru Ban, Sou Fujimoto, Thomas Heatherwick, Neri & Hu and Li Xiaodong.

Architecture Drawing Prize: Curated by Make Architects, Sir John Soane’s Museum and the World Architecture Festival, the World Architecture prize was created to recognise the continuing importance of hand drawings, as well as embracing the creative use of digital media. The digital hybrid drawing Memento Mori by Jerome Xin Hao Ng was selected as the overall winner of this year’s completion. His entry will be shown alongside the winners of the hand-drawn and digital categories as well as the 38 shortlisted entries in the festival hall.

Iranian Architecture Prize – This year WAF will give unique recognition to the best completed building by an Iranian practice from the last three years. The nine shortlisted projects range from a restaurant in the capital Tehran to a private residence nestled in a hillside facing the facing the Alborz mountain range. A special jury will meet in Berlin on Friday 17 November, where the shortlisted Iranian practices will be able to present their buildings live at the festival in Berlin. The prize for the best completed building by an Iranian practice will be presented at the Gala Awards Dinner on the Friday evening.

Merck Crystal Pavilion Prize – Merck, in association with World Architecture Festival and the Architectural Review, has this year launched a competition open to architecture students across the world to come up with innovative and sustainable designs for a pavilion entirely made out of glass. The winner will be announced at the WAF Gala Dinner and the winning design will be put into production next year.

The WAF10 & Shortlist Party Berlin - To celebrate the finalists and its tenth edition, WAF will host a lavish anniversary party on Wednesday 15th November at the stylish Soho House Berlin, located in a Grade II-listed Mitte Landmark.

The grand WAF finale will be the Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony on Friday 17th November, where the overall winners of the World Building, Interior, WAFX, Future Project and Landscape of the Year will be announced. Coaches will leave Arena Berlin for the Postbanhof venue from 6.30pm. 

Running alongside WAF is its sister event INSIDE which will showcase 2017’s most ground-breaking interiors projects. Visitors to INSIDE will be able to view this year’s best in class interiors nominations from leading practices and designers across four continents.

WAF and its co-located sister event INSIDE World Festival of Interiors will welcome more than 2,000 of the world’s leading architects and designers to the city for three days of conference programmes, awards, exhibitions and fringe events from 15-17 November.

Top image: Shortlisted entry from the Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards, which will be shown at WAF: Image © Fabio Mantovani. Project: Main Square of Choi Hung Estate, Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Housing Authority

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