Winners Announced for 3rd Living Steel Competition

Turin, 2 July 2008 - Living Steel today announced winners for its 3rd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing, which presented architects with the task of creating energy efficient, single-family, detached housing that minimises climate change emissions and can withstand temperature extremes, yet is affordable to build and to buy.

Jury Prize for extreme housing in Cherepovets, Russia

* First Prize: Peter Stutchbury Architects, Australia
* Honourable Mention: RVTR, Toronto, Canada
* Honourable Mention: Bligh Voller Nield (BVN) Architecture, Australia

Architects Prize for Master Planning (Design Charrette)

* Daniel Jenkins, ECD Architects, United Kingdom
* Lourenço Gimenes, FGMF Arquitetos, Brazil
* Pekka Pakkanen, Huttenen-Lipasti-Pakkenen Architects, Finland
* Philip Wells, Hugh Broughton Architects, United Kingdom
* Vimal Jain, ARCHITECTURE PARADIGM, India
* Fabio Cibinel, modostudio, Italy

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

According to the Jury’s report, the design was selected because “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 is the most memorable of all of the schemes offered in the competition, and the Jury made a 5 to 1 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 neighbourhood plan provides an incredible play field for children and park-like setting for the community.”

Here some impressions of the the winning design by Peter Stutchbury Architects:

The Jury was hard pressed to select only one winner since so many high-quality schemes were presented. Because of this, it was decided to give Honourable Mention to two additional teams, RVTR of Toronto, Canada, led by Kathy Velikov and Paul Raff, and Bligh Voller Nield (BVN) Architecture, with team members Chris Clarke and Joel Kelder. Each of the Honourable Mention teams receives a €3,000 prize.

“Having been on previous Living Steel juries, the quality of the work represented in this year’s entries is of a higher standard, the diversity in the work is greater, and the commitment to the work is greater,” said Glenn Murcutt, Jury Chair. “I think this is a consequence of the way Living Steel has conducted the competitions this time where each of the teams have been invited here to present the work. There is a big difference in presenting your ideas in person and sending a set of drawings off for people to interpret.”

Living Steel chose to change the format for 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 of the community. The day began with a Mark Verdier, Professeur à l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de NANCY, who 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 to select the winning group. The winning group, 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, ATENASTUDIO + modostudio, Italy, 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.

“On behalf of the jury, I would like to say that we commend the organizers of the 3rd Competition format. We very much appreciated the interactivity between the jury and finalists, the openness of the presentations, and the fostering of shared ideas, kinship and beneficial conversations,” said Murcutt. “It represents a departure from traditional formats, and one that really achieves the very dialogue that Living Steel wishes to generate among the world’s architects.”

In addition to Mr. Murcutt, the 3rd International Architecture Competition’s renowned Jury includes:

* Kimmo Lintula, K2S Architects Ltd., Finland
* Mark Middleton, Grimshaw Architects, UK
* Patricia Patkau, Patkau Architects, Canada
* Sergey Skuratov, Sergey Skuratov Architects, Russia
* Alexei Venediktov, SeverStal JSC, Russia  

Peter Stutchbury Architects will begin collaborating with Russian developer and Living Steel member SeverStal, as well as a local Russian architect, to define their design for construction in Cherepovets. Living Steel plans to showcase a completed demonstration building in late 2009. The homes constructed from the winning design will be part of a community for use by employees of SeverStal JSC, which has a large manufacturing operation in Cherepovets.

“This year’s competition was a fantastic opportunity to bring together some of the brightest architects in the world today who are passionate about steel as a sustainable material for residential construction,” said Scott Chubbs, Living Steel Programme Director. “We are extremely pleased with the offerings for single-family dwellings this 3rd competition generated and hope that they serve as further inspiration in the dialogue on sustainable architecture.”

Details about the winning design and master plan, Jury report, brief summaries of each finalist presented and more about the 3rd International Architecture Competition can be viewed at www.livingsteel.org/.