Winners chosen for international sustainable housing competition

Living Steel announced the winners of its 3rd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing, which presented architects with the task of creating energy efficient, single-family, detached housing that minimizes climate change emissions and can withstand extreme temperatures yet is affordable to build and buy.

Australian firm, Peter Stutchbury Architects, represented by Peter Stutchbury and Richard Smith, was selected as the winner for extreme housing in Cherepovets, Russia, receiving the Jury Prize of €50,000.

The design was selected for its innovative approach and its awareness of local environmental and community requirements. The Jury’s report stated; “Peter Stutchbury Architecture’s scheme represents the kind of thinking the Living Steel competition is meant to inspire, offering a more considered, thoughtful and larger trajectory to the project brief requirements. It was the most memorable of all of the schemes offered in the competition, and the Jury made a majority decision to select it as the winning scheme for the 3rd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing. It is radically different and has a very imaginative understanding of the landscape theme, and the suggested neighborhood plan provides an incredible playing field for children and a park-like setting for the community.”

The Jury was hard pressed to select only one winner from a number of entrants because of the high-quality designs and as a result, awarded Honourable Mentions to two additional teams; RVTR of Toronto, Canada, led by Kathy Velikov and Paul Raff, and Australian firm, Bligh Voller Nield (BVN) Architecture, and its team members Chris Clarke and Joel Kelder. Each team will receive a €3,000 prize.

Living Steel chose to change the format of the 2008 competition, bringing all 12 teams together in Helsinki, Finland, at Historic Suomenlinna for presentations to the Jury.

The participants watched from the audience as each team presented their design concepts and discussed their approaches with the Jury.

As the Jury entered deliberations at Hvitträsk, the 24 architects who made up the finalist teams were divided into four groups and tasked in a Design Charrette with master planning for the community. Mark Verdier, Professeur à l'Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de NANCY, conducted a presentation on considerations for community planning. The groups were briefed on the Cherepovets development requirements and then given a day and a half to develop the community’s master plan. To select the winning group, each team voted for one of the three other teams. The winning group which includes: Daniel Jenkins, ECD Architects, UK; Lourenço Gimenes, FGMF Arquitetos, Brazil; Pekka Pakkanen, Huttenen-Lipasti-Pakkenen Architects, Finland; Philip Wells, Hugh Broughton Architects, UK; Vimal Jain, ARCHITECTURE PARADIGM, India; and Fabio Cibinel, modostudio, Italy, will share a €24,000 Architects Prize.

Each team receives a €3,000 honorarium for participating in the competition, as well as their travel expenses to Helsinki paid by Living Steel.