BAAD Studio wins at the World Architecture Festival 2018
After a succession of presentations, panels, appraises, and formed discourses in between, The World Architecture Festival (WAF) has named the Day 1 category winners in its 2018 programming. Winners are recognized in over 35 categories for the first two days of the conference, with the third and final day dedicated for the announcement of the World Building of the Year. WAF forwards a culture inspired by expressions and representations of the built form. It is the only architecture event that harbors keynote talks from the industry’s most influential figures, apace with live crit presentations. It is being held as of press time at the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre in Netherlands, pacing through its second day.
The projects were selected live by a Super Jury made up of jury chair Nathalie de Vries, director and co-founder of MDRDV; Lesley Lokko, head of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg; Manuelle Gautrand, founder of Manuelle Gautrand Architecture; Li Xiaodong, founder of Atelier Li Xiaodong; and Frederick Cooper Llosa, founder and senior partner of Cooper Graña Nicolini Arquitectos.
BAAD Studio’s Sunken Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes of Cabetican was among the 16 winners announced during the first day, and the only Southeast Asian entry on the list. It won under the Civic Future Project category, besting nine other firms and projects: AECOM–Shams Central Mosque in Abu Dhabi; Emre Arolat Architecture–Nora Mosque and Community Center in Ajman; HCMA Architecture + Design–Clayton Community Center in Surrey; Kyriakos Tsolakis Architects–Troodos Star Observatory in Agridia; LandLAB–Ponsonby Park + in Auckland; Perkins+Will–Northtown Affordable Housing and Public Library in Chicago; Provencher_Roy + GLCRM Architectes–The Reception Pavilion of Québec’s National Assembly in Québec; Studio Link-Arc–Luhu Cultural Center in Shenzhen; and TEGET + Studio Evren Başbuğ Architects–Gallipoli Memorial Gardens in Çanakkale.
Built in the Brutalist style, the Sunken Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes of Cabetican in Bacolor, Pampanga, retains memories from June 15, 1991, when Mount Pinatubo erupted and wreaked havoc in the surrounding areas, concealing everything under a blanket of ash fall and dried lahar. Regardless of its misfortunes, BAAD Studio provided a redevelopment plan for the Cabetican shrine, preserving the structure’s original elements. The design was kept at a certain level of simplicity, and promoted the use of spartan materials to sustain the familiarities of the province.
To win an award at the WAF is an honor—that overflowing warmth crafted by recognition, that lightness felt after the ascent, but aside from this sense of gratitude, this is how the sunken truly resurfaces: existing today to inform people of its previous story, and reminding others that the ruin also has the faculty to exhibit the features of great architecture. 
READ MORE: The sunken Cabetican Shrine in Pampanga is unsinkable in spirit
Photographed by Ed Simon
