The big winners in this year’s Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) Architectural Design Awards were two of the island’s most deserving names: WOHA and Kerry Hill Architects.

The seventeenth edition of the awards granted 11 awards, with Oasia Hotel Downtown (by WOHA) and Amanemu (by Kerry Hill Architects) both receiving the top honour of ‘Building of the Year’ as well as topping the ‘Commercial’ category.

Oasia Hotel Downtown was praised for its originality, which has boldly demonstrated WOHA’s unique view of architecture in Singapore’s urban context by “redefining the role of landscape in the city addressing tropical climate and bringing the ground plane up into a high-rise building”.

The judges were deeply impressed by the aesthetic purity and the refined sense of place at Amanemu. “For the uplifting purity of architecture and for the deliverance of a total design environment that has captured the spirit of the place and the soul of architecture, the jury panel unanimously awards Amanemu, a Design Award and Building of the Year 2017,” says the jury citation.

Other Design Award winners were Bayshore Park Underpass by GreenhilLi and Rhizome House by DP Architects, both in the ‘Special’ category. Honorable Mentions went to the New Wings at the Asian Civilisations Museum by GreenhilLi and the Mediacorp building by DP Architects (both in the ‘Special Categories’), The Tembusu by Arc Studio Architecture + Urbanism ( ‘Residential’ category), The Warehouse Hotel by Zarch Collaboratives (‘Commercial’ category) and Yishun Community Hospital by CIAP Architects (‘Institutional’ category).