This year’s best international architecture and interiors are revealed today as the 2025 World Architecture Festival (WAF) shortlist is announced. Today’s shortlist celebrates the best new completed buildings, interiors and urban landscaping from around the world, as well as the best new future architectural projects. The shortlist is announced ahead of the festival’s first-ever event in the USA, where finalists will present their projects live to a panel of judges. WAF 2025 will be hosted at the Miami Beach Convention Center, in the heart of South Beach and the iconic Art Deco District, from the 12-14 November.
The 2025 WAF shortlist features over 460 projects, across categories ranging from: best Creative Re-Use, Housing, and Education, through to best Hotel, Sports and Culture. Selected from over 780 entries, this year’s shortlist celebrates the most groundbreaking architectural and design achievements across the globe.
The 2025 shortlist sees project entries from the world’s leading practices – including Bjarke Ingels Group, Foster + Partners, Studio Gang, Grimshaw, Nikken Sekkei, Mario Cucinella Architects, and Perkins&Will, go up against those by some of the world’s most exciting emerging studios. Within this
year’s shortlist, practices from America are the most highly represented, with China, UK, Australia, India, Canada, Singapore, UAE, Turkey and Japan also in the top ten.
This year’s 235 shortlisted completed buildings include everything from a New York film studio to the 2025 World Expo pavilions. The 157 future projects shortlisted include a new airport for Athens and a giant telescope enclosure in Chile. The 64 shortlisted interiors range from a rainforest hotel in Singapore to a noodle bar in Chongqing, while the 12 shortlisted landscapes include a public plaza in the middle of London’s Canary Wharf and a wildlife eco park in Bhabua, India.
WAF features the globe’s largest live-judged architecture awards, complemented by keynote talks, an exhibition, and various fringe events including architecture tours, networking opportunities, and workshops.
This year’s WAF Judging Panel, of 164 experts representing 37 countries, includes: Ma Yansong, Founder and Principal Partner at MAD Architects, Annette Fisher Founder at FA Global, Richard Maimon Senior Principal at KieranTimberlake, Joyce Owens Principal at Architecture Joyce Owens LLC, and Franziska Meisel, Global Director Landscape at Henning Larsen.
Still to come, the winners of this year’s WAFX Awards, celebrating architecture that tackles major world issues, will be announced on Monday 14 July on WAF social media channels, with the Special Prizes announcements following on Monday 28 July.
All finalists on the shortlist will present their projects within their categories during the first two days of the festival. On the final day, category winners from across all 43 categories will go on to present to the Super Jury to compete for World Building, Landscape, Future Project and Interior Project of the Year. The overall winners of this year’s Special Prizes, including WAFX, will also be announced live from the festival.
WAF programme director Paul Finch comments:
“We are delighted to be staging WAF in the USA for the first time and also thrilled that so many USA architects have entered the awards. We have also seen an increase in entries from Central and South America. The overall quality of the shortlist is as good as it has ever been, and we look forward to seeing over 460 presentations in Miami Beach this November.”
WAF will be in Miami for its 17th edition, following previous editions of the festival in Singapore, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Berlin.
Press can apply for an Official Press Pass to attend the World Architecture Festival here.
For more details on the 2025 World Architecture Festival and the WAF Awards please visit: worldarchitecturefestival.com @worldarchfest #WAF25
