The winners have been selected for contractworld.award 2011, and will be honored during a celebration Jan. 15, 2011, at the annual Domotex show in Hannover, Germany. A total of 525 architects, interior designers and design experts from 34 countries took part in the international competition celebrating innovative interior design. In a nod to the burgeoning green movement, all entrants were asked to submit a statement on the sustainability of their projects for the first time.

The top three entries in each of the four categories (Offices/Administration Buildings, Hotels/Spas/Catering Facilities, Shops/Showrooms/Exhibition Stands and Conversion will receive a total of 60,000 euros (about $78,000). The finalists come from the United States, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Sweden, China and the Czech Republic.

In addition to the four categories, Domotex will also present four special awards to avant-garde projects submitted by "new generation" architects/interior designers who are under 40. The judges have drawn up a shortlist from the 130 entries submitted for the New Generation competition. The winners will be decided at Domotex, where the architects will each hold a live presentation on their respective project before the judges.

"Architecture is public. By officially recognizing the quality of the winning entries at contractworld.award we are making a public statement about the refreshing diversity and conceptual strengths of the contemporary international architecture community," noted Professor Bart Lootsma from the Leopold Franzens University in Innsbruck, Austria.

"The lively discussions that took place between the judges was indicative of the high quality of the projects submitted," said Jan Störmer, a panel chairman of Störmer Murphy and Partners GbR from Hamburg. "Many of the projects are distinguished by outstanding design, but beyond that they are also remarkable in terms of energy-saving and budgetary aspects."

Another judge, Anne Lacaton from Lacaton & Vassal Architectes in Paris, added, "We saw many projects with quite distinctive concepts that function admirably in the context of daily life and the working environment."

Judges also included: Professor Gesche Grabenhorst from ahrens grabenhorst architekten BDA in Hannover/Germany, Kim Herforth Nielsen from 3XN A/S in Aarhus - Copenhagen/Denmark, Burkhard Remmers from Wilkhahn in Bad Münder/Germany, Markus Schäfer from HOSOYA SCHAEFER Architekts AG in Zurich/Switzerland, Susanne Schmidhuber from Schmidhuber + Partner GbR Architektur Innenarchitektur in Munich/Germany, Much Untertrifaller from Dietrich Untertrifaller Architekten in Bregenz/Austria and Botjan Vuga from SADAR VUGA ARHITEKTI d.o.o. in Ljubljana/Slovenia.

The winners are:

Offices/Administration Buildings

Clive Wilkinson Architects, West Hollywood, Calif., for "One Shelley Street," AU-Sydney (office of the Macquarie Group)

Estudio Di Arquitectura Alonso Balaguer S.L.P., Barcelona, for "Edificio La Baronda," ES-Barcelona (office building in former ceramics factory)

Wiel Arets Architects, NL-Maastricht, for "The V Tower," NL-Eindhoven (office tower)


Hotels/Spas/Catering Facilities

Arch. Di Oskar Kaufmann / Albert Rüf ZT GmbH, AT-Dornbirn, for "Alpenhotel Ammerwald," AT-Reutte (hotel in Alps/Tirol)

Miller & Maranta, CH-Basle, for Mineral baths and spa, CH-Samedan (mineral baths and spa)

fattinger/orso/rieper, AT-Vienna, for "BELLEVUE Das gelbe Haus," AT-Linz (temporary building)


Shops/Showrooms/Exhibition Stands

Gerhards & Glücker, DE-Berlin, for "Albrechtsburg Meißen," DE-Meißen (exhibition architecture Albrechtsburg Meißen)

J. Mayer H., DE-Berlin, for "Level Green," DE-Wolfsburg (architecture for exhibition on sustainability in Wolfsburg, one of Germany's major car manufacturing centers)

March Studio, AU-Melbourne, for "Aesop, Adelaide-Zürich-Flinders Lane," AU-Adelaide (shop for a body care company)


Conversion
NOTE: This category represents converting an existing building into one with an entirely new purpose or function through a new design concept, new construction or fundamental physical alterations.

AF_LA Albert France_Lanord Architects, SE-Stockholm, for "White Mountains," SE-Stockholm (office and server facility of an Internet provider in a former air raid shelter)

NHDRO, (Neri&Hu Design and Research Office), CN-Shanghai, for "The Waterhouse at South Bund," CN-Shanghai (boutique hotel in a former Japanese garrison)

Vyehrad Atelier, CZ-Prague, for Atrium D, CZ-Prague (atrium of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Czech Technical University - in a former factory building)


For more information, visitwww.contractworld.com.