International VELUX Award for Students of Architecture

The International VELUX Award challenges students of architecture to explore the theme of sunlight and daylight in its widest sense to create a deeper understanding of the specific and ever-relevant source of light and energy. The Award is biennial and was presented for the first time in 2004.

The Award celebrates and promotes excellence in completed study works in any scale from a small scale component to large urban contexts or abstract concepts and experimentation. The Award is presented by VELUX in close cooperation with International Union of Architects (UIA) and the European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE).[1]

Contents

Award theme

“Light of Tomorrow” is the overall theme of the International VELUX Award. The Award wants to challenge the future of daylight in the built environment with an open-minded and experimental approach. Therefore, the Award seeks to widen the boundaries of daylight in architecture, including aesthetics, functionality, sustainability, and the interaction between buildings and environment. The Award contains no specific categories and is in no way restricted to the use of VELUX products.

Registration

The International VELUX Award 2012 opened for registration on 1 October 2011. Students must register to participate in the Award. Registration is performed via the Award website.

Any registered student of architecture – individual or team – from all over the world may participate in the Award. The Award wants to acknowledge not only the students but their teachers as well. Therefore, all students must be backed and granted submission by a teacher from a school of architecture. This year, the deadline for registration is 1 March 2012.

Jury

The jury of the International VELUX Award comprises internationally recognized architects and other building professionals representing different perspectives on architecture and different geographies.

The jury of the 2012 Award makes up a distinguished panel of five jury members with different cultural backgrounds, nationalities and approaches to architecture. The jury represents a balance between tradition, experience, innovation, age, gender and geography as well as world experience and multicultural orientation.

The jury will meet in Copenhagen in June 2012 to evaluate all submitted projects and nominate the winners.

Jury members 2012

Alvaro Siza, Portugal, considered his country’s greatest living architect. Over the last five decades Álvaro Siza has assembled a body of work that ranks him among the greatest architects of his generation. His works are internationally renowned for their coherence, clarity, and what Siza calls ‘simplism’ - a quality that recognizes the complexity and contradictions of a project without trying to impose artificial control over them.

Brigitte Shim, Canada, has been a professor, since 1988, at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. Brigitte Shim is also a principal in Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, Toronto, formed in 1994.The firm is primarily known for their unparalleled ability to engage light, water and the Canadian landscape into each project so that the result is a magically seamless integration of architecture, landscape and furniture. The works by Shim-Sutcliffe have been published widely in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Francis Kéré, Burkina Faso/Germany, self-employed planner and lecturer at the Technische Universität Berlin. The focus of Kéré’s work is climatic adaptation, low building costs and self-building. His first project, a primary school in his home village Gando was finished in 2001 and received the Aga Khan Award for its exemplarity as well as its concise and elegant architecture using basic, constructive instruments.

Peter Stutchbury, Australia, is emerging as one of the leaders of a new generation of Australian architects. He is recognised for his innovative approach to sustainability and design. As principal of the firm Peter Stutchbury Architecture he has practiced independently since 1981 producing a wide variety of award winning projects that have been exhibited, published and acclaimed all over the world.

Per Arnold Andersen, Denmark, architect and head of Daylight, Energy and Indoor Climate Department in the VELUX Group. He has been working as practicing architect and planner for more than twenty years before he joined the VELUX Group in 1999. Since 2004 he has taken part in the planning of the International VELUX Award for Students of Architecture.

Jury members 2010

History

The first International VELUX Award took place in 2004. 760 students from 194 schools in 34 countries in Europe registered, and 258 students from 106 schools in 27 countries submitted their projects. The international jury led by Glenn Murcutt selected three winners and eight honourable mentions, who were announced at the Award event held in Paris.

In 2006, the Award went global – inviting students from all over the world to participate. The number of submissions more than doubled reaching 557 projects from 225 schools in 53 countries. The international jury led by Per Olaf Fjeld decided to award three winners and 17 honourable mentions, and they were all celebrated at the Award event at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

In 2008, the Award received a record-high number of entries. 686 projects were received, representing 244 schools of architecture in 46 countries. The international jury led by jury chairman Hani Rashid of Asymptote Architecture decided to award three winners and eight honourable mentions, who were celebrated at the Pisani Palace in Venice in November 2008.

In 2010, the Award represented more countries than ever before. There were 673 entries from 280 schools in 55 countries. The international jury led by jury chairman Magda Mostafa decided to award three winners and eight honourable mentions. They were all celebrated at the award event on 6 October 2010 in La Rochelle, France.

Winners

The total prize money of the International VELUX Award is 30,000 Euros. The jury decides on the number of prize winners and honourable mentions.

In 2010 the jury appointed three prize winners and eight honourable mentions. Young-Gook Park, Kim Dea Hyun, Choi Jin Kyu and Kim Won Ill from Hanyang University, South Korea, won the first prize for their project Constellation of Light Field. Ma Xin, Wang Rui and Yang Meng from the Architecture School of Tianjin University, China, won the second prize for their project Condensation of Variational Sunlight Influences. Joe Wu from Delft University of Technology, TU Delft, the Netherlands, also won the second prize for his project Lightscape between gaps.

In 2008 the jury appointed three prize winners and eight honourable mentions. Reilly O’Neil Hogan from Cornell University, USA, won first prize for his project “Embodied Ephemerality”. Ruan Hau and Xiong Xing from Tsinghua University in Beijing won second prize for their project “Interface repairing – Light Festival. Dean Carlo MacGregor from Lusíada University in Lisbon, Portugal, won third prize for his project “Light has a body”.

In 2006 Louise Groenlund of Denmark won the International VELUX Award for her project ”A museum of photography”. All in all, 20 winners and honourable mentions were announced at the Award event at the Guggenheim Bilbao in November 2006.

In 2004 the first prize went to Norwegian student Claes Heske Ekornås for his project “Light as matter”. In 2004, ten winners were announced at the Award event in Paris.

External links and sources

References