Exceptional quality leads to 27 projects chosen for Education Award long list

Judging for the inaugural WAN Education Award has now reached long list stage and an exceptional calibre of submissions has meant that the list has been extended. WAN Editorial Director and Education Award judge Michael Hammond explains:

“The entries for the inaugural WAN Education Award exceeded expectations on almost every front. The designs were of consistently high quality but diverse in concept , imagination and specific objectives. They were however, brought together by a common aim; to deliver buildings that enabled architecture to impact on the very fabric of the education process. The projects submitted ranged from a simple but wonderful village school in Bangladesh at one end of the spectrum, to a sophisticated Harvard science facility at the other. Selecting a long list of 25 proved an impossible task, so after much wrangling, the resultant “longer list” of 27 is proof positive of the quality of architecture being produced in the 21st Century.

It must be relayed however that some entries omitted to “sell in” the projects sufficiently by not addressing the specific judging criteria in the accompanying text.

We would like to thank all the participants and wish good luck to those practices moving to the final judging on the 21st of April in London.”

See the full longer list in pictures.