The World Architecture Festival (WAF) will feature a Wood Excellence Prize for the first time in 2014. Sponsored by the American Hardwood Export Council, the prize is open to any category of project – the only criteria being that wood play an integral part.

Entry into the prize is free and if shortlisted, the designers or architects responsible will be invited to present their project to the prize judges live at the festival. The prize winner will be announced at the WAF awards ceremony in Singapore on Friday 3 October.

“Wood, as a renewable resource material, is indispensable in architecture and design. Our daily challenge is to achieve projects and products that are sustainable, of timeless beauty, pure and simple, but at the same time technically and environmentally innovative. The new Wood Excellence Prize will reinforce this intention and I am very pleased to be involved in this very prestigious event,” says architect Matteo Thun, jury chair for the Wood Excellence Prize.

Entries for the Wood Excellence Prize are to be submitted by 30 May 2014. For more information, visit the website.