Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

With its emblematic high-tech architecture, the University of Technology Petronas provides an inspiring structure for progressive education in this rapidly developing nation. The Award will be presented to the architects, Foster + Partners and GDP Architects, and the Petronas Corporation (the Petronas Towers won an Award in the 2004 cycle).

Koudougou's Central Market introduces simple improvements to a traditional material - stabilised earth - to create an important space for civic exchange and economic opportunity, helping enhance and strengthen a mid-sized town in Burkina Faso. The Award will be shared by the Koudougou Municipality, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the architects, Laurent Séchaud and Pierre Jéquier.

Hand-built in four months by the local community and volunteer architects from Germany and Austria, the School in Rudrapur, Bangladesh, makes use of easily available local materials to create a new model for school construction that is beautiful, simple and humane. The architects Anna Heringer and Eike Roswag will share the Award with the craftsmen and volunteers who assisted in the building, and the Bangladeshi NGO for sustainable rural development, Dipshikha.

Princess Zahra Aga Khan, Head of the Social Welfare Department, Secretariat of the Aga Khan, was the Keynote Speaker at the launch of the World Disaster Reduction Campaign 2008-2009: 'Hospitals Safe from Disasters', 25 January 2008, Davos.