World Architecture Festival and Inside World Festival Interiors 2021 will now take place online

WAF 2021 FESTIVAL CONFERENCE THEME: RESETTING THE CITY: GREENING, HEALTH & URBANISM

At one level, the idea of greening concerns landscape design, biodiversity and ecological concerns. However, the idea of resetting the city in the context of Covid-19 has taken on new dimensions. Subjects for discussion will include strategies for clean air, greater use of public transport, water quality and supply, and the generation of ‘clean’ energy as part of urban planning strategies across the globe. The idea of the green city is related to the concept of sustainability, which now includes ideas about the control of pandemics, and the extent to which health concerns can feed into planning and urban design, at both a small and large scale.

In response to continuing COVID-19 travel restrictions, we have to announce that WAF/INSIDE 2021 will not take place in Lisbon this December but will instead be an entirely online event.

Although the COVID-19 vaccine programme is being rolled out successfully in many countries, there are varying restrictions and quarantine conditions worldwide that would prevent many of our finalists attending in person. One of the key benefits of WAF is networking, sharing ideas and making new connections. With a large percentage of our finalists unable to travel, the experience would be greatly reduced.

Following feedback from finalists and partners, we have therefore taken the decision to make WAF/INSIDE 21 a live and interactive digital event.

Live judging will continue to form a cornerstone of the 2021 WAF digital edition

The 2021 WAF digital event will consist of three days of live conference programmes, awards, and fringe events, with talks by leading global architectural thinkers and industry personalities – live-streamed exclusively to festival delegates.

WAF includes the biggest international architectural awards programme in the world, dedicated to celebrating excellence via live presentations to an audience of high-profile delegates and international juries. Accolades including ‘World Building of the Year’, ‘Future Project of the Year’, ‘Interior of the Year’ and ‘Landscape of the Year’ will be judged live and streamed to festival delegates across the world.

With 18 digital crit rooms and 18 sets of international judges, the WAF 2021 digital event stands to offer the widest access to the largest amount of content in the history of the festival; creating 40 days-worth of exclusive programming which will be available to delegates on demand up to 90 days after the event.

The excitement around bringing WAF to Portugal’s capital city remains, and the WAF 2022 edition is confirmed to take place in Lisbon from 30 November to 2 December at the FIL exhibition centre. Harnessing opportunities opened up by this year’s event, the 2022 festival will include integrated digital elements to form a hybrid festival format, fully attuned to digital and in-person delegates.