singapore –
A Chinese boarding school designed to help students relax and “waste time mindfully” has been named World Building of the Year in 2023.
Huizhen High School in Ningbo, eastern China’s Zhejiang province, with its rooftop park, treehouse and “floating forest” elevated walkway, won the coveted title at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Singapore on Friday. .
Designed by Approach Design Studio and Zhejiang University of Technology Engineering Design Group, the quiet campus common areas aim to blur the distinction between inside and outside. The building features an outdoor auditorium and tree-lined boulevards, in addition to learning facilities for 30 classes of school students.
Approach Design Studio said that while education prioritizes efficiency, the school campus itself needs to stimulate free thinking. In a description of the project, the company said the design aims to help students “release stress, align their bodies and minds, and discover beauty” outside of the classroom.
The coveted World Building of the Year title is considered one of the architecture industry’s highest honors and is decided by a panel of 140 experts at the annual festival. This year’s winning design was commended by the judges for breaking the conventional wisdom in school design.
WAF program director Paul Finch cited the judges’ comments while presenting the award on stage, calling the project “both fun and unexpected.”
“The architects were able to create a school that is very different from the usual model, where students are boxed in and put under pressure not only educationally but also architecturally,” Finch told attendees. “In contrast, this design promotes walking, fresh air, and the possibility of respite from the intensity of academic work.”
The design was selected from a pool of approximately 250 shortlisted projects, including the recently opened Terminal A at Newark Liberty International Airport, the Holocaust Museum in Melbourne, Australia, and the new national stadiums of both Cambodia and Senegal. Ta.
Buildings were judged across 18 categories spanning commercial, cultural and residential architecture. Those winners competed for the overall prize.
In the school category, Huizhen High School won. Winners in other categories include India’s 7.1 million square foot Surat Diamond Stock Exchange, which this year surpassed the Pentagon to become the world’s largest office building; the buildings combine to form the country’s largest thatched roof; This included the German hotel and resort resort Lanserhof Sylt. Houses on the outskirts of Winnipeg, Canada, Europe.
WAF, held in Singapore, home to three recent World Building of the Year winners, also awarded awards to landscape architecture. This year, the award went to Benjakiti Forest Park in Bangkok, Thailand. This park is an “urban ecological reserve” under development in Bangkok, Thailand. The site of a former tobacco factory and proposals for ambitious future architectural projects and interior design.
Last year’s top prize went to Australia’s Quay Quarter Tower, dubbed the world’s first “upcycled” skyscraper because the design retained two-thirds of the old skyscraper on the site.
