News: a host of international architects including Zaha Hadid, UNStudio, Snøhetta and Safdie Architects have been shortlisted to design the World Expo 2017 exhibition in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Coop Himmelblau, J. Mayer H, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture and Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas are also among the 45 architects competing to masterplan the 2017 world fair, which will take place for three months in the summer of that year.

Also in the running are Mecanoo, HOK, Stefano Boeri, GMP Architekten and Serie Architects.

Bearing the title Future Energy, the Astana Expo 2017 is set to be centred around the promotion of sustainable energy sources and technologies.

"The theme of our exhibition is closely related to 'green economy', which takes into account the possibility of using alternative energy sources and the autonomous water and heat provision in each of the constructions," said Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who suggested that some of the proposals could be combined to form a "symbiosis project".

The competition attracted over a hundred applications from 20 different countries. The proposals being taken forward will be revealed in September.

Astana Expo 2017 will follow the Milan Expo 2015, which is named Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life. The most recent Expos to take place were the Yeosu Expo 2012 in South Korea and the Shanghai Expo 2010, which featured Thomas Heatherwick's Seed Cathedral.