BIG and SLA recognised for best building & best landscape project of the year

Tenderstream members Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and SLA Architects are celebrating success at the World Architecture Festival Awards (WAF) 2021. BIG’s waste-to-energy plant CopenHill/Amager Bakke in Copenhagen - which features a rooftop park designed by SLA - was declared World Building of the Year 2021. Meanwhile, SLA Architects were also awarded Landscape of the Year 2021 for Al Fay Park in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The double-win for SLA in the World Architecture Festival’s two main categories is an unprecedented achievement. No architect or landscape architecture practice has ever won both awards the same year.

Chosen from the WAF Landscape: Urban context category, Al Fay Park is a new 27,500 sq m public park in downtown Abu Dhabi that signals a new kind of Middle Eastern city development. Driven by inclusive nature rather than iconic buildings, the scheme is the Middle East’s first urban biodiversity park. The jury stated: “Al Fay Park is a thoughtful and intelligent response which takes into consideration pressing contemporary social and environmental issues. It is more over a delightful and biodiverse oasis in a dense desert city.”

The CopenHill scheme was selected from the WAF Production, Energy & Recycling category. Also known as Amager Bakke, the building is a new breed of waste-to-energy plant, topped with a ski slope, hiking trail and climbing wall. WAF Program Director, Paul Finch, said: “CopenHill addresses the role of architecture in the new world of recycling and zero carbon. It treats infrastructure projects in a way which makes people say 'Yes in my back yard' rather than 'no.' It encourages designers to think beyond the brief, to argue for ideas, and to ride the tides of politics and economics in the pursuit of the socially beneficial. And it reminds us that buildings can be fun!”

Lucy Nordberg
Tenderstream Head of Research

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