The World Architecture Festival has announced its shortlist of the best sports building and stadia design projects for its annual award ceremony, which lists 11 strong candidates including Mercedes-Benz Stadium and Optus Stadium competing for the architectural excellence gong.
The WAF is the world’s largest architectural event dedicated to celebrating the very best in design and architecture projects and spans 32 categories ranging from residential and infrastructure, hotel and leisure, to commercial use, education and religion.
In the sport category, recent completed buildings include a varied selection of some of the world’s most creative and innovative stadium projects. Alongside super-sized professional sports stadia are university sports centers, sports halls and gymnasiums.
An example of the spectrum of projects to be judged by an expert panel includes the Bamboo Sports Hall at Panyaden International School in Thailand (above), which is made entirely of bamboo and built to accommodate 300 students, in contrast to the Atlanta Falcons’ environmentally conscious Mercedes-Benz Stadium behemoth.
The WAF will take place on November 28-30 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where leading architects and designers behind each project will present to international juries to compete for awards.
The full list of buildings in the sports category are:
Vestre Fjord Park
Aalborg, Denmark
ADEPT
HuangLong Swimming and Diving Sports Center (below)
Hangzhou, China
Central-South Architectural Design Institute Co.
Bamboo Sports Hall at Panyaden International School
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Chiangmai Life Architects
Çankaya University Sports Center
Ankara, Turkey
Erkal Architects
Sportcampus Zuiderpark (bottom)
The Hague, Netherlands
FaulknerBrowns Architects
Optus Stadium
Perth, Australia
Hassell, Cox & HKS
Mercedes-Benz Stadium
Atlanta, USA
HOK
Gymansium, Blaise Pascal High School
Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Koffi & Diabaté Architectes
Canoe Lake Leisure Tennis Pavilion
Southsea, UK
PAD Studio
Luzhniki stadium
Moscow, Russia
SPEECH
Thialf Ice Arena
Heerenveen, Netherlands
August 15, 2018
