GROHE is Founding Sponsor of the World Architecture Festival, 2021
The digital edition of the 2021 World Architecture Festival (WAF) took place with the theme “Resetting the city” from 30 November till 3 December 2021
Supporting architects and designers around the world to create healthier urban landscapes during and beyond the pandemic, GROHE is proud to be the main sponsor of the World Architecture Festival (WAF) 2021, a role taken on by the brand upon the inception of the festival in 2008. As a founding partner, GROHE, a leading global brand for complete bathroom solutions and kitchen fittings, represents the unique role water plays in the design discipline and helps shape innovative architectural visions and solutions around the element of water. During the challenging times of the past years, GROHE has continued to support the architect community by sponsoring this year’s WAF and the Water Research Prize 2021.
Greener, cleaner cities
The festival’s theme was“Resetting the City”. Ecological concerns regarding city planning, biodiversity and sustainability now meet the overall need to create healthier, safer surroundings more than ever. As concepts for sourcing clean energy, reducing pollution, and clean water supplies are now directly linked to the control of pandemics, they are becoming the centre of urban planning strategies across the globe, and have also become the focus of this year’s festival. A total of 320 hours of inspiring keynotes, sessions, and panel discussions were presented to the WAF community. As a highlight of this year’s festival, architects from all over the world came together to compete with one another to win “The World Building of the Year”, an award which was unveiled by GROHE on 3 December 2021 as the grand finale.
Inspired by nature – a win to fight global water scarcity
In this context, GROHE awarded the annual Water Research Prize again to projects aiming to find creative solutions for water in the built environment. Out of 53 winners awarded this year, 22 were from Asia. China led the way with 11 wins, the most amount of winners, followed by 7 from Australia and 1 each from India, New Zealand, Singapore, and Vietnam.
The Water Research Prize has been part of the World Architecture Festival since 2017 when the WAF X Manifesto was first published. The manifesto identified the most important challenges for architects within the next ten years, including water in relation to the built environment. With this year’s festival focusing on improving the quality of life in urban areas through greener, healthier infrastructures, the close connection to water is particularly striking. By sponsoring the award, GROHE has been supporting research in the field of unique architectural challenges around water for the past four years and is proud to continue doing so at this year’s festival.
Click here to discover more about GROHE’s sponsorship and the WAF.