Winners unveiled for LAGI 2022 Mannheim competition for clean energy landscapes

The winners have been announced for the LAGI 2022 Mannheim design challenge. The competition called for clean energy solutions to be based in the German city of Mannheim.

“Too often these energy infrastructures are seen as utilitarian and unaesthetic, which leads to pushback from communities near where they are planned,” the organizers said about their motivation for the competition. “What if we could flip this paradigm and present solutions for renewable energy landscapes that are designed as beautiful places for people, providing a range of social co-benefits beyond clean energy?”

First prize and a cash award of $30,000 USD were presented to Malaysian architect Chai Yi Yang for his proposal Energy Circus. The scheme manifests as a shared ecosystem between people, wildlife, and landscapes, anchored by a pedestrian corridor through the city’s Spinelli Park. If implemented, the scheme would generate 1,200,000 kWh every year for the City of Mannheim, while inspiring and educating the public with a “creative living encyclopedia” of regenerative technologies and circular economies.

“Energy Circus asks us to consider what is the ideal relationship between people, landscape, wildlife, energy, and material resources?” Yang explains. “How can cycles of interconnectedness be demonstrated to the community in a tactile and theatrical experience?”

Second prize and a cash award of $10,000 USD were presented to a group of students from Technische Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe in Germany for the project Kaleidoscopic Dune. The project, designed by Muny-Roth Chev, Jason Daniel, and Vatsapol Nanta, would generate 85,000 kWh each year within a public gathering space, urban garden, and playground.

“Light makes all life on Earth possible and helps define the human experience,” the group explains. “Kaleidoscopic Dune explores how technology, art, and light merge to define sustainable living in the twenty-first century. Incorporating light as a sculptural and experiential element, the artwork is a modular system of energy generation that is quickly assembled in a variety of forms made from sustainable materials.”

You can compare the latest cohort of winners with those of previous Land Art Generator Initiative competitions by reviewing our ongoing coverage here.