The anti-formula way to award-winning architecture

The design reduces the building’s footprint by ‘floating’ part of the building above the entrance courtyard in the form of a 21m-long cantilever. Photo: Aga Khan Trust for Culture/Cemal Emden

A sacred space that plays inventively with tradition; a pedestrian bridge that emphasises use over form; a project that is at once landscape and building; a bold, contemporary insertion into a traditional setting; a diminutive library operating at a much larger micro-urban scale, and an urban park that provides new forms of public space.

These are brief descriptions provided by the jury of the six projects that received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2016.