The inaugural World Architecture Festival (WAF) will be held in Barcelona in October this year and will include the WAF Awards, comparing and contrasting buildings completed within the past 18 months.

After receiving over 700 submissions, a short list has been announced of 224 projects from 43 countries. The UK, USA, Australia and Mexico had the highest number of entries to the Awards, with the emerging China, Russia and India also having strong representation on the short list.

Australia scored 13 buildings on the short list including Warrandyte Police Station, Melbourne (Kerstin Thompson Architects), Pinnacles Interpretive Centre, Namburg National Park, Western Australia (Woodhead), School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney (Lyons), Cooroy Art Temple, Queensland (JMA Architects) and Southern Cross Station (Grimshaw) in Melbourne.

Other entries include a public toilet in Texas (designed by Miro Rivera Architects), a fire station in Mexico City (bgp arquitectura) and a Christian church in Beijing (WSP).

The short-listed projects will compete for the World Building of the Year 2008. Architects will present to juries and live audiences during the WAF from 22 – 24 October 2008 at the Centre Convencions Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB).

The 16 awards categories are as follows:

Civic, New & old, Culture, Office, Energy, waste & recycling, Pleasure, Health, Production, Holiday, Religion & contemplation, Home, Shopping, Learning, Sport, Nature, Transport.

Visit the event website for more info.