To Inpsire at Least One: My Thought 01: The WAF 09

The World Architecture Festival which was held in Barcelona from the 4th-6th of November was very refreshing, enabling myself a wider perspective of the architectural and design approach at a global standard. It showcased seminars and most importantly for me, presentations of buildings by international architects on a Powerpoint format with 10 minutes time limit. This was an opportunity for them to sell their shortlisted projects to juries, to be crowned 'Building of the Year' in their category. What was rather suprising is, some of the presentation was rather, bad to be honest. English may not be their 1st or 2nd language, but it is quite obvious that they are either unprepared or just nervous. Other great presentation, the concept and ideas are actually comparable to us students, the poetic architectural language that is used to describe the shape and feature, but what makes them stand out, is the approach, the understanding, solving and coming up with innovative strategical method that is simple, yet complex. The simplest way of how I understand it is, there is always a reason behind every curve and orientation. I believe that design development has to be thorough, and instead of saying, I want, its more of a, it needs, they need, we need, to solve and enhance an area. Some projects are exceptional, Foster+Partner, LAVA and Rafael Vinoly posted some intriguing experimental innovative design that would be on going soon. I would definitely want to visit the festival again, but not with a £200 receipt, but with an invitation from the EDAW S.O.S Competition or shortlisted for a building I designed in the near future. This has truly inspired me to work hard and be a part with the big boys.

Here are some pictures I took during the seminar and presentation:

Main seminar room

[Managing Explosive Urban Growth] Arturo Ortiz (Director, Taller Territorial de Mexico, far left), Sanjay Puri (Founder,Sanjay Puri Architects, 2nd from left), Meng Yan (Partner, Urbanus Architecture & Inc, far right)

[Governance: Obligations and Opportunities for Architect] Phillip Follent, Queensland Government Architect

Keynote Speech by Farshid Moussavi, Function of Form (co-founder of FOA, Foreign Office Architects)

There are 8 rooms which consist of 3 judges in each room. (from left to right, Charles Jencks, USA, Nabil Gholam, Lebanon [i think] and Simon Allford, UK)

[Making the Uninhabitable Habitable - Masdar City, The Most Radical and Ambitious Urban Development in the World] Chris Bosse (co-founder, LAVA, left) and Gerard Evenden (Senior Partner, Foster + Partners, centre)