Design Concrete 2023

Design Concrete 2023

Design Concrete 2023 is a national student competition which encourages architecture students to explore the benefits of designing sustainably with concrete.

The competition is open to students studying at schools of architecture, landscape architecture and the built environment in the UK, and is free to enter.

The 2023 project is to design a sustainable concrete structure within a former quarry that allows both humans and wildlife to successfully share the same environment, providing a platform for biodiversity and opportunities for visitors to engage with and learn about the natural and geological environment. The setting for the structure is any publicly-accessible location within the Ouse Fen Nature Reserve, near Cambridge. 

Students can choose to design a café, information centre, nature trail or bird watching shelter, or indeed a combination of some / all. 

There are no specific size or space requirements stipulated. These can be determined by the entrants to suit individual proposals. 

The design should however feature concrete as a significant component of the proposal, demonstrating an understanding of how it can be used to reduce whole life carbon, provide climate change resilience and support a more circular economy. 

Suggested areas for consideration include: 

1. Low carbon cements. 
2. Resource efficient forms (e.g. post-tensioning, ribbed slabs, thin shell, hollow core, 3D-printed elements). 
3. Design for long life through loose fit and/or disassembly. 
4. Recycled content, recyclability and reuse. 
5. Use of thermal mass for passive cooling and heating.  
6. Fire and flood resilience. 
7. Healthy indoor environments. 
8. Support for biodiversity. 
9. Innovative products. 
10. Design to support green, blue and brown roofs. 
11. Sustainable drainage systems to support other green infrastructure. 

The judging panel are also looking for students to explore creative ways of using concrete with texture, colour, form, and post-finishing techniques (where appropriate) to create architectural spaces and landscape interventions of unique and site-specific character

The written brief, details of prizes and a pack of site information including scaled drawings, photographs and drone film footage can be downloaded at: www.concretecentre.com/designconcrete