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Look: The World's Most Amazing Future Condo Developments

Look: The World's Most Amazing Future Condo Developments
WAF

If you’ve been to one of Canada’s larger cities in recent years, particularly Toronto or Vancouver, you may have noticed something of a condo craze.

According to the 2011 national household survey, 53.5 per cent of the residents of Canada’s three largest cities — Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver — live in condos, and that doesn’t even take into account the last four years of furious construction.

So how is Canada’s condo landscape holding up compared to the rest of the world? Well, we certainly aren’t building any of the world’s craziest or loudest condo projects, but we are building some good enough to make the short list of a global architecture competition.

Two Vancouver buildings currently in development — the Nelson on the Park and Vancouver House — have been nominated for best future residential project at the 2015 World Architecture Festival.

Vancouver House has certainly gotten attention before, thanks to its unique design (it's wider at top than at bottom) and its location straddling an on-ramp to the Granville Street bridge.

But forget Vancouver, the real story in this category is the Union of Architects of Kazakhstan, whoever they are, for being the only architects to land not one but two projects on the WAF’s future residential shortlist.

One of the projects, Affordable Box, looks nothing like a box and in fact looks like, well, a gigantic condo-sized Hobbit hole. Or something.

The other one, called Slalom House, is designed so that you can ski from the roof to the lobby. You’ll have to see believe it, but assuming weather and snowfall conditions are right, this could be the best place ever for skiers to live.

Check out Slalom House and all the other 16 nominees for best future residential project for 2015. All the different categories can be found here, and winners will be announced in Singapore in November.

190 Strand - London, U.K. (GRID architects)
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Adventz Tower
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Dubai, U.A.E. (LW Design Group)
Affordable Box
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Almaty, Kazakhstan (Union of Architects of Kazakhstan)
Battersea Power Station Residential Homes
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
London, U.K. (Michaelis Boyd Associates)
E37 Street Residential Tower
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
New York City (Perkins+Will)
Incek Loft
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Ankara, Turkey (Tabanlioglu Architects)
Kundu
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Antalya, Turkey (GAD Architecture)
Mixed Development - Alexandria, Sydney
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Sydney, Australia (BKA Architecture)
Nelson on the Park
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Vancouver, Canada (IBI Group, Nick Milkovich Architects, Chris Doray Studio)
One Blackfriars
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
London, U.K. (SimpsonHaugh and Partners)
Peninsula Town
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Zhejiang province, China (Shanghai Tianhua Architecture)
Quadrant 4
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
London, U.K. (Alford Hall Monaghan Morris)
Slalom House
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Astana, Kazakhstan (Union of Architects of Kazakhstan)
Suites in the SKAI
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Dubai, U.A.E. (Atkins)
University of Queensland Student Accommodation
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Brisbane, Australia (nettletontribe)
Vancouver House
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Vancouver, Canada (Bjarke Ingels Group)
White Clouds
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com
Saintes, France (POGGI architecture, MORE architecture, SNC-Lavalin engineering)
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