The Best Architectural Designs in the World Unfolded!

 According to a CNN publication, a soaring hotel in Dubai, a space observatory in Cyprus and the control center of a Turkish solar power plant are among more than 220 projects shortlisted for the coveted World Building of the Year prize.

Spanning 18 categories, from housing and offices to health facilities and sport venues, the shortlist was announced by organizers of the annual World Architecture Festival (WAF) on Monday.

Other notable buildings on this year’s shortlist include the new Australian Embassy in Washington DC and the recently expanded Terminal 2 at Singapore’s Changi Airport.

The finalists will all present their projects at the festival’s 17th edition this November. A panel of 175 delegates will vote for category winners, which then go head-to-head for the overall title.

Last year’s top prize was awarded to a boarding school, in China’s Zhejiang province, which features a rooftop park, treehouses and elevated walkways that form a “floating forest.” Previous winners of World Building of the Year include the Zaha Hadid-designed National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome, a waste-to-energy power plant with a rooftop ski slope in Copenhagen and Sydney’s “upcycled” Quay Quarter Tower, which retained two-thirds of an old skyscraper on the site.

In a statement, WAF program director Paul Finch said that 2024’s competition had attracted “another terrific set of entries” that had “made shortlisting projects a tough process.”

Scroll down to see a selection of this year’s nominees.