World Festival 2017 and INSIDE Festival, which will showcase 2017's most ground-breaking interiors projects, are starting in just under two weeks and for the second time, will take place in in the German capital at the Arena Berlin. Architects and interior designers who will be attending from around the world can look forward to an extensive Fringe schedule at this year's event.

As already communicated in a previous post this year Festival's theme is ‘Performance', and will include keynote addresses, discussions and debates examining the topic of performance from the perspectives of housing, public spaces, festivals, cultural institutions and new technologies. Highlights on this year's seminar programme include Virginia Lung, Co-Founder, One Plus Partnership, Shanwei Weng, Founder AN Design, aime Oliver, Director, OHLAB/Oliver Hernaiz Architecture Lab and Rossana Hu, Co-Founder, Neri & Hu.

In addition to the 2017 awards and talks programme, delegates will have ample opportunity to make new contacts and extend their networks with an action-packed that includes architect tours, parties and a celebratory gala dinner to end the three day festival.

Highlights of the Fringe programme include:

Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards – Event partner Arcaid has announced the 20 finalists for its Architectural Photography Awards 2017, an annual celebration of the best architectural photography. Each of the images on the shortlist will be displayed at the Sto stand in WAF's Festival Hall, with visitors able to vote for their favourite before the overall winner is announced at the World Architecture Festival 2017 Gala Dinner.

Architect Tours – Delegates can discover Berlin's diverse architectural identity with guided tours led by local experts, Niche. The tour programme runs from Tuesday 13 – Saturday 18 November. Highlights include a tour of the city's iconic building sites, the physical manifestation of the architectural arms race between the East and West of the city, visits to some of Berlin's most interesting repurposed cultural spaces and famous art galleries.

AR Emerging Architecture Awards – The prestigious £10,000 prize recognises and supports talented young architects and designers at a key stage in their career,
promoting their work to a worldwide audience. This year the Architectural Review will present the winner of the award at World Architecture Festival 2017. Previous winners have included Shigeru Ban, Sou Fujimoto, Thomas Heatherwick, Neri & Hu and Li Xiaodong.

Architecture Drawing Prize: Curated by Make Architects, Sir John Soane's Museum and the World Architecture Festival, the World Architecture prize was created to recognise the continuing importance of hand drawings, as well as embracing the creative use of digital media. The digital hybrid drawing Memento Mori by Jerome Xin Hao Ng was selected as the overall winner of this year's completion. His entry will be shown alongside the winners of the hand-drawn and digital categories as well as the 38 shortlisted entries in the festival hall.

Iranian Architecture Prize – This year WAF will give unique recognition to the best completed building by an Iranian practice from the last three years. The nine shortlisted projects range from a restaurant in the capital Tehran to a private residence nestled in a hillside facing the facing the Alborz mountain range. A special jury will meet in Berlin on Friday 17 November, where the shortlisted Iranian practices will be able to present their buildings live at the festival in Berlin. The prize for the best completed building by an Iranian practice will be presented at the Gala Awards Dinner on the Friday evening.

Merck Crystal Pavilion Prize – Merck, in association with World Architecture Festival and the Architectural Review, has this year launched a competition open to architecture students across the world to come up with innovative and sustainable designs for a pavilion entirely made out of glass. The winner will be announced at the WAF Gala Dinner and the winning design will be put into production next year.

The WAF10 & Shortlist Party Berlin – To celebrate the finalists and its tenth edition, World Architecture Festival 2017 will host a lavish anniversary party on Wednesday 15th November at the stylish Soho House Berlin, located in a Grade II-listed Mitte Landmark.

The grand World Architecture Festival 2017 finale will be the Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony on Friday 17th November, where the overall winners of the World Building, Interior, WAFX, Future Project and Landscape of the Year will be announced. Coaches will leave Arena Berlin for the Postbanhof venue from 6.30pm.

World Architecture Festival 2017 and its co-located sister event will welcome more than 2,000 of the world's leading architects and designers to the city for three days of conference programmes, awards, exhibitions and fringe events from 15-17 November.

For more details on how to attend the World Architecture Festival 2017 please visit
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
@worldarchfest #WAF2017