International High-Rise Award 2024/25 Projects from three continents in the final for the world’s best high-rise
International High-Rise Award 2024/25
Projects from three continents in the final for the world’s best high-rise
The finalists of this year’s International High-Rise Award (IHA) have been determined. The jury selected five buildings from Asia, Europe and South America from a total of 31 nominated high-rise buildings from 13 countries. Alongside the wealth of aesthetic and technical ideas, the jury also based its assessment of the respective project on its social value as a “good neighbor”, its sustainable characteristics, and whether it featured a good design with a strong future.
The IHA is considered the world’s most important architecture award for high-rise buildings. The winner will be honored on November 12th in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche. In addition, the event will be broadcast via live stream.
The IHA is presented by the City of Frankfurt am Main together with Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) and DekaBank and is endowed with a statuette of the internationally renowned artist Thomas Demand and prize money of EUR 50,000.
The IHA 2024/25 finalists at a glance
CapitaSpring, Singapore
Architecture: BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, Copenhagen, Denmark & CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, Turin, Italy / New York, USA
IQON Residences, Quito, Ecuador
Architecture: BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, Copenhagen, Denmark / New York, USA
Shenzhen Women & Children’s Center, Shenzhen, China
Architecture: MVRDV, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Valley, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Architecture: MVRDV, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Bunker Tower, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Architecture: Powerhouse Company, Rotterdam, Netherlands
The International High-Rise Award is aimed at architects and developers whose buildings are at least 100 meters high and have been completed in the past two years. The jury evaluates the nominated projects with the criteria: future-oriented design, functionality, innovative building technology, integration into urban development schemes, sustainability and cost-effectiveness.
The IHA 2024/25 jury
The international jury is made up of experts from architecture and engineering practice, education and the partners of the IHA, namely DekaBank, the City of Frankfurt, and Deutsches Architekturmuseum.
Kim Herforth Nielsen, Founding partner 3XN, Copenhagen – jury chairman
Yasmin Al-Ani Spence, Director WilkinsonEyre, London
Roland Bechmann, Partner Werner Sobek, Stuttgart
Jürgen Heinzel, Associate Design Director UN Studio, Amsterdam
Christopher Lee, Managing founding partner Serie Architects, London
Mari Randsborg, CEO Cobe Architect, Copenhagen
Dr. Ina Hartwig, Deputy Mayor in Charge of Culture and Science City of Frankfurt / Main,
Peter Cachola Schmal, Director Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM), Frankfurt/Main
Victor Stoltenburg, Managing Director Deka Immobilien Investment GmbH, Frankfurt/Main
Horst R. Muth, Head of Real Estate Project Management, Deka Immobilien Investment GmbH, Frankfurt / Main
Jury statements / About the finalists
The jury members concurred that the central challenges facing high-rise construction stem from the need for greening, for greater densities, and for maximum use of existing buildings. The task that architects and urban planners must in the future tackle is to combine all three aspects. Against this background, chaired by Kim Herforth Nielsen the jury selected a shortlist of five finalists from among the 31 longlisted projects: a corporate headquarters with greened public zones (CapitaSpring); an elegant residential tower with a seemingly brutalist appearance, (IQON Residences); a revitalized 1990s building (Shenzhen Women and Children’s Center); a mixed-usage high-rise in the form of a landscape (Valley); and the integration of a student center from the late 1960s into a high-rise (Bunker Tower).
CapitaSpring in Singapore, designed by BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group (Copenhagen & New York) and Carlo Ratti Associati (Turin) is not just the new headquarters of the CapitaLand property company. For the building also and by no means least provides space for open gardens that straddle several stories and are accessible to the general public free of charge.
The jury found the building was remarkably elegant and were also taken by the aspect of urban greening and the inclusion of local culture along with adaptation to the Singaporean climate.
Another BIG project was shortlisted, namely the IQON Residences in Quito. It is the highest building in Ecuador’s capital and the jury was won over by its especially striking architecture and strong greenery thanks to which a pleasant residential ambient climate is created without elaborate air conditioning.
The residential tower convinced the jury in several respects. Its elegant, curved shape ensures the building enjoys surprising spatial qualities, such that the form strengthens the function. The curvature aligns the apartments optimally to the outside world: Each unit on both the building’s main axes have optimal views.
As a specimen project for a national program to reduce carbon emissions in China, the architects at MVRDV have converted a high-rise built as recently as the 1990s into the mixed-usage and brightly colored Shenzhen Women and Children’s Center and thus saved the original building from demolition – an absolute first in China! Alongside an array of spaces for women and children, the project now also includes a hotel, offices, conference spaces, and commercial premises.
In the jury’s opinion, the project is a clear sign that the People’s Republic of China is making fast progress in its efforts to address the problem of the first generation of high-rises, which are gradually growing old, while at the same time making certain that the gray energy innate in existing buildings is not lost.
The Valley mixed-use complex in Amsterdam stands in a neighborhood hitherto dominated by classical office buildings. In the shape of a rocky mountain landscape, its three eccentric residential towers with their changing footprints rise up from a geometrical podium. The latter houses additional usages such as offices and restaurants as well as a footpath through the Valley.
The jury feels the Valley is a project that “plays with the contrast of a strict outer façade and the essentially random inner structure to create a vertical village well worth living in. A project that breathes life into the otherwise cold business district and makes it more human.” Parts of the building were deliberately defined as open to the public in order to offer visitors a view of the surroundings that is otherwise the privilege of the inhabitants.
The fifth finalist is the Bunker Tower located in Eindhoven in the Netherlands and masterminded by Rotterdam’s Powerhouse Company. The architects have taken a low, brutalist students’ center from then late 1960s as the starting point for a high-rise that is primarily residential, transferring the striking formal language of the old structure onto the tower.
The jury liked the idea of deriving the project from the specifics of the site and at the same time preserving the local architectural heritage by skillful redesigning of the old built form. This sensitivity to the heritage is also reflected in the careful choice of materials.
International High-Rise Award (IHA)
The International High-Rise Award was jointly initiated in 2004 by the City of Frankfurt, Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) and DekaBank. Since then, it has been organized and financed in partnership and cooperation between Deutsches Architekturmuseum and DekaBank and will be awarded for the eleventh time in 2024.
Previous recipients of the IHA
Quay Quarter Tower, Sydney, Australia (2022)
Architecture: 3XN, Copenhagen, Denmark
Norra Tornen, Stockholm, Sweden (2020)
Architecture: Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)
Torre Reforma, Mexiko City, Mexiko (2018)
Architecture: LBR&A Arquitectos
VIA 57 West, New York NY, USA (2016)
Architecture: BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group
Bosco Verticale, Milan, Italy (2014)
Architecture: Boeri Studio
1 Bligh Street, Sydney, Australia (2012)
Architecture: ingenhoven architects / Architectus
The Met, Bangkok, Thailand (2010)
Architecture: WOHA
Hearst Headquarters, New York NY, USA (2008)
Architecture: Foster + Partners
Torre Agbar, Barcelona, Spain (2006)
Architecture: Ateliers Jean Nouvel
De Hoftoren, Den Haag, Netherlands (2004)
Architecture: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates
More information from:
www.international-highrise-award.com
