Buro Ole Scheeren shortlisted for Three World Architecture Festival - Future Awards

First, Empire City, a landscaped high-rise ensemble for Ho Chi Minh's next-generation, is nominated in the mixed-use category.

With Empire City, Büro Ole Scheeren seeks to merge the city with nature and to reintroduce the inhabitants of this busy metropolis to the wonders of Vietnam’s innate character and natural environment. Situated on a central peninsula of the Saigon River, the project is envisioned as an integrated, holistic environment that fuses nature with the rapidly growing metropolis. As a result, new qualities of urban living will emerge in this mixed-use ecosystem of work, life, culture, entertainment, and public enjoyment.

Shenzhen Wave, the future headquarters for ZTE in Shenzhen, China is nominated within the office category. A new archetype for the urban workplace, the design for ZTE, one of China’s leading technology companies, is envisioned as a dynamic, living organism, that generates innovation, ideation and new ways of working, collaboration, and socialising. The Shenzhen Wave exemplifies how state-of-the-art design thinking can redefine the built environment, the workplace as well as encourage innovation within and around individuals, companies, and cities. 

Finally, Fifteen Fifteen, nominated for WAF Futures residential category, is a new typology for vertical living in Vancouver, Canada. This project exemplifies an ambition to reconnect architecture with the natural and civic environment and reaches beyond the hermetic confines of the high-rise towers that increasingly inscribe our lives. By opening the shaft of the tower to embrace both city and nature, in a three-dimensional sculpture, the new tower responds to the multi-directional and varied context, envisioning new possibilities for future living in a cosmopolitan and environmentally conscious city.

The three nominations highlight Buro Ole Scheerens current portfolio: From city-defining structures to intimate spaces, its work embodies a rigorous search for new potential and to realize specific and unexpected solutions.