World Architecture Festival 2014: an image of the cavernous white interior of Zaha Hadid's Heydar Aliyev Center has been named architectural photograph of the year, from a shortlist that also featured a twisted skyscraper and a sunken flea market (+ slideshow).

The 20 photographs were competing in the 2014 Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards, presented at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore last week in four categories – exterior, interior, sense of place, and buildings in use.

The shortlist was selected by a panel of judges that included architects Terry Farrell, Bjarne Hammer of Schmidt Hammer Lassen, and Calvin Tsao and Zack McKown of Brooklyn studio Tsao & McKown Architects.

The overall winner, voted for by visitors to the festival, was a shot by British photography duo Hufton + Crow of Zaha Hadid's Azerbaijan project – a cultural centre with walls that rise seamlessly from the surface of the surrounding plaza.

"The shoot for Zaha Hadid Architects in Azerbaijan was one of those rare occasions these days where Nick and I both travelled together and shot a project at the same time," said Allan Crow. He and partner Nick Hufton had three shots of the building in the shortlist.

"It is a huge project and we only had two days to shoot it, so it really needed both of us," he told Dezeen. "The winning shot is a classic example of how we try to capture and communicate architecture through our images."

"A good image to us has to be bold in composition, with strong architectural elements, ideally combined with capturing a moment. We don’t set up or direct the people in our images, rather we compose the frame and then shoot people as they naturally explore the space. This hopefully results in images that have a narrative," he said, adding that the process is made "far easier" when world-class architecture is the backdrop.

A runner-up from the Sense of Place category is an aerial view by Portuguese photographer Joao Morgado of Alvaro Siza's iconic Leça Swimming Pools full of swimmers, while a runner-up from the Buildings in Use category was a shot by Barcelona-based Inigo Bujedo Aguirre looking down into a sunken flea market by B720 Arquitectura.

Other shortlisted photographs included a view of Bjarke Ingels' Bjerget project that juxtaposed the modular residences against the surrounding neighbourhoods, as well as a cow shed interior and the rooftop of a small house in South Korea.