London, UK – Shortlisted projects for the 2023 World Architecture Festival (WAF) were recently announced. This takes place ahead of the actual event taking place in Singapore, at Marina Bay Sands, from 29 November - 1 December.

The shortlist celebrates the best new completed buildings and landscapes as well as the most inspiring future architectural concepts, across 33 categories, ranging from residential, to cultural, to creative re-use.

The shortlist have been selected from over 800 entries, and comprise comprise 495 projects from 333 unique practices.

This year’s finalists range from major world architects including Foster + Partners, UNStudio, Grimshaw Architects, MAD Architects, WilkinsonEyre, Safdie Architects and Nikken Sekkei, while many smaller practices will also be on stage, live pitching against the big names.

The international judging panel for this year’s awards consists of more than 140 industry experts, representing 43 countries, and will include Lily Jencks, Nigel Coates, Rafiq Azam, Albert Williamson-Taylor, Tracy Meller, Jason Bruges, Annette Fisher, Roland Schnizer and Issa Diabaté.

This year’s finalists span the globe, with the top ten shortlisted countries including China, Australia, United Kingdom, India, United States, Iran, Thailand, Singapore, Canada, and Japan.  

On the final day of the festival, category winners from across all 44 category prizes will go head-to-head for the ultimate accolades of World Building of the Year, Landscape of the Year, Future Project of the Year and Interior of the Year.  A host of Special Prizes, including WAFX, which celebrates imaginative cutting-edge designs addressing major world issues, will also be awarded to projects from the main shortlist. 

WAF returns to Singapore for its 16th edition after the global community of architects and designers last met at Marina Bay Sands in 2015. This follows previous editions of the festival in Lisbon, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Berlin. In addition to the unique live-judged awards programme and crit presentations, this year’s event will include a live events programme and keynote talks from an international panel of speakers. 

WAF programme director Paul Finch comments: “We are delighted with both the quantity and quality of this year’s entries. They are a reminder in a world experiencing numerous crises that architects continue to address both everyday and unusual challenges with skill and imagination. We look forward to seeing the shortlisted architects in Singapore.”

NOTE: The full shortlist for this year’s completed buildings, future and landscape project awards can be view here.