The recently concluded WAFVirtual conference (Nov 30 – Dec 4) was a landmark event for the World Architecture Festival, being the first time that the prestigious annual event was held completely online. Leading architects, designers and industry experts from across the world shared their insights on the festival’s theme of “Living with Pandemics” over five days in this global online conference. 2020 marks GROHE’s twelve successive year of founder sponsorship. We are proud to share highlights from WAFVirtual that we were honoured to have been part of:

In Conversation with Paul Flowers, Chief Design Officer LIXIL

Learn about the new trends in bathroom design and innovation caused by the COVID situation in this insightful discussion between Paul Flowers, LIXIL’s Chief Design Officer, and Paul Finch, WAF’s Programme Director.

WAF Water Research Prize 2020

Researchers from the University of Patras, Greece, have won the £10,000 research prize sponsored by GROHE to investigate how rainwater can be used to help cool facades of buildings in super-hot cities. The winning project is a suspended modular lightweight facade system for evaporative cooling with harvested rainwater. A light-weight structure which can be retrofitted to existing building facades will now be developed with façade consultants.

Learn more about this outstanding project at the WAF website and see the award presentation video below:

Tech Talk – Rooms with a Point of View

In this final day GROHE panel discussion, design leaders from Accor, Universal Design Studio and Gensler discuss how the pandemic has affected hospitality design. Pascale Porro, LIXIL’s Leader for Projects Channel Hospitality EMENA shares the stage.

To see the entire WAFVirtual 2020, please register at the World Architecture Festival website to watch on demand.