Auckland Stadium at Quay Park by HKS, in Auckland, New Zealand, also known as Te Tōangaroa, is one of 33 future projects that have been announced as winners of this year’s World Architecture Festival WAFX Awards.

The stadium, a winner in the ‘Cultural Identity’ category, has been designed in collaboration with Buchan, TOA Architects and Boffa Miskell (landscape architects), with close consultation with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.

Also of note is the Warren and Mahoney (WAM) project University Technology of Sydney - National First Nations College designed in association with Greenaway Architects, OCULUS and Finding Infinity, in Sydney, Australia — also a WAFX Prize winner in the ‘Cultural Identity’ category — the third time in a row the New Zealand-based practice has been awarded in this category for its work across the ditch.

The awarded projects recognise those that use design and architecture to tackle major world issues across 11 key categories, including health, climate change, technology, ethics and values.

This year’s category winners for Ethics and Values include a project that explores rebuilding Gaza’s landscapes and restoring the agricultural and cultural heritage of the land. It also includes the designs for a public park for a city in Iran which imagines a future with no restriction to civil freedoms, providing hybrid public spaces for men and for women.

Winners of the Power and Justice category include a project in Istanbul designed around the Alevism community’s need for a legitimate space in the city, designed around the ritual of gathering and assembling. The Carbon and Climate category winners include the transformation of a disused gas tower in Münster into a sustainable residential tower.

The WAFX 2024 Winner Announcement comes ahead of the live WAF event which takes place this year in Singapore, at Marina Bay Sands, from 6–8 November, and follows the WAF Shortlist announcement earlier this month (8 July) which celebrated the best new global completed buildings, landscapes and future architecture concepts.

Paul Finch, Director of the World Architecture Festival, comments: “This year’s winners show how major challenges affecting people and environments generate responses which address functional and social problems, while lifting the spirits of those who will benefit from creative architecture and design. We look forward to seeing these ideas presented at our Festival in Singapore this November.”

For a full list of 2024 WAFX Prize winners click here.

View the New Zealand projects shortlisted for WAF and Inside 2024.