This year’s World Architecture Festival announced from Amsterdam the new World Building of the Year, a title which went to a public library in The Netherlands.
The LocHal Public Library of Tilburg is housed inside a former locomotive hangar dating back from 1932 and shares its facilities with art organisations, co-working spaces and labs, creating a new format of library and a “social condenser,” according to the judging panel. The judges particularly appreciated the way the library used most of the original hangar structure without having had to build new structures. “It’s impressive the way the project transformed a significant building which had been planned for demolition,” the judging panel said as commentary.
Other significant awards were presented at the Festival, including the title of Interior of the Year, Landscape of the Year and Future Project of the Year. A redesigned and modernised Japanese colonial house in Taipei City, Taiwan, took the award for the best interior; the Landscape of the Year title was awarded to another Eastern Asian project - the Yangpu Riverside Public Space of Shanghai, China, which “reconnects the city to the waterfront,” according to the judging panel.
The title of Future Project of the Year, celebrating the best of the world’s architecture that’s yet to be completed, went to the Connected City area outside of Hamburg in Germany. Once it’s finished, it will be a fluid mix of housing, business, shopping centres, public buildings and recreational activities.
If you’d like to know more about the other winners and finalists of this year’s Festival, you can do so at the official website here.
