In a wonderful celebration that honours the best interior spaces of the year, from design hotels to restaurants, to offices and retail spaces, the World Interior of the Year shortlist has been recently announced and the evident frontrunner is China! Basically, more than a third of the overall seventy-eight contenders are based in the country. This prestigious award is a part of the programme for Inside World Festival of Interiors.

Some of the most distinguished nominees are a working space in Shanghai, a minimalist comic store located in Beijing and a sleek Japanese restaurant in the southern city of Shenzhen. Impressively, Chinese interiors are represented across all nine categories of the awards.

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“The Chinese architectural community is on a bit of a roll at the moment. When we started, entries from China were more likely to come from international practices that happened to have been commissioned to do buildings in Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen,” explained Paul Finch, the program director at Inside World Festival of Interiors. In a more general view, the director discloses that “Many of the shortlisted designs concern the way that interiors help us to live, work and play more efficiently and more enjoyably.”

The evolution of China at the awards is largely due to the efforts made by the festival’s organisers to communicate with more regions of the world.

However, China is not the only leading force since Australia gathered 12 nominations, including four for a single company, SBJ. Other projects that made into the shortlist are a mathematics gallery which was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the office Neri&Hu that was conceived in an old missile factory, and projects from renowned references, such as Heneghan Peng Architects and Universal Design Studio are also present in the list.

⇒ Get to Know Some of the Interior Spaces Shortlist for the World Interior of the Year Award ⇐

Butterfly Aviary & Noor Café by 3deluxe architecture (Sharjah, United Arab Emirates)

5-7 St Helen’s Place with The Leathersellers’ Hall by Eric Parry Architects (United Kingdom)

Adidas with Checkland Kindleysides and Gensler (New York, USA)

Soho 3Q Bund by anySCALE Architecture Design Consultants (Shanghai, China)

Bamboo’s Eatery by Minggu Design (China)

Baoding Xinhua Bookstore by Beijing Fenghemuchen Space Design (Baoding, China)

Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal by CannonDesign + NEUF architects (Canada)

Apartment Above Suspicion by Carlo Berarducci Architecture (Rome, Italy)

CHA-Chinese Restaurant of Wanda Vista Hefei by Wanda Hotel Design Institute (Hefei, China)

Green‧Restful by Clearspace Design & Research (Yilan County, Taiwan)

Fluid Bar Exchange by Studio Ardete (Chandigarh, India)

Artisan House Sales Gallery by Half and Half Studio (Hong Kong, China)

Airbnb European Headquarters by Heneghan Peng Architects (Dublin, Ireland)

Paper Space by J.C.Architecture, Paper Space (Taipei, Taiwan)

WeWork Weihai Road by WeWork and Linehouse (Shanghai)

Harrods Grand Entrance Hall by Make Architects (London, United Kingdom)

Nimman Spa by Maos Design (Shanghai, China)

Curio Stair of Encounters Bloomberg Hong Kong Office by Neri&Hu Desgin (China)

NUBO by PAL Design Group (Sydney, Australia)

Fabricwood by Produce workshop (Singapore)

Changyou Headquarters by Redhousechina (Beijing, China)

Cleveland Rooftop by SJB (Sydney, Australia)

Hotel Mono by Spacedge Designs (Singapore)

The Buena by SJB (Australia)

TOKU Japanese Cuisine Restaurant by Shenzhen Yi Ding Design (Shenzhen, China)

At Six Hotel by Universal Design Studio (Stockholm, Sweden)

MISA studio by WJ Design (Hangzhou, China)

Vommuli Island Maldives Resort by WOW Architect and Warner Wong Design (Maldives)

Underground Forest by WUtopia Lab (Shanghai, China)

Mathematics The Winton Gallery by Zaha Hadid Architects (London, United Kingdom)

The winners will be revealed this November in Berlin, in the final stages of the prestigious three-day event.

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Source: CNN | Inside Festival