Living Steel has announced the winners of its International Competition for Sustainable Housing at the UN-Habitat World Urban Forum III in Vancouver.
“Housing a developing global population that is growing at the rate of a small city every day poses a unique set of challenges,” Carl Perry, Chairman of the Living Steel Steering Group explained. ”Flexible, sustainable and cost effective housing solutions must be found. The Living Steel competition challenges architects around the world to think about how steel can offer a solution to the global housing and environmental challenges. It is an innovative material that facilitates speed of construction and design flexibility, to provide durable and comfortable living space.”
The competition called for designs that could be built in two locations: Warsaw in Poland and Kolkata in India. Architectenbureau cepezed from the Netherlands has won the competition for a design to be built in Poland. The competition for India has been won by UK architects Piercy Conner Architects. Each firm will be awarded a prize of €50,000 and a contract to develop their designs for construction.
The winners were selected by an independent jury, chaired by internationally-renowned architect Glenn Murcutt and approved by the International Union of Architects (UIA). Jury members included Charles Correa, James Berry, Andrew Ogorzalek, Jaime Lerner (UIA) and Nicholas de Monchaux (UIA).
Commenting on the winning entries, Glenn Murcutt said: “We were very impressed with the entry from Architectenbureau cepezed for Poland. It incorporated simple floor plans, robustness and flexibility of design and the use of double loaded corridors. The flexibility of the layout will enable full advantage to be made of ventilation and daylight. The scale of the proposed design and, in particular, how the configuration of the building can respond to its context also impressed the Jury.
“The Jury was struck by the simplicity and lightness of the scheme proposed by Piercy Conner for India. Specifically we were attracted to the strong concept of ventilation across every space. The inclusion of the roof terrace and the potential for the plan to provide open and closed zones within apartments was also striking. The Jury felt this idea was sufficiently robust and flexible to allow consideration for other proportions of the floor plate too.”