Architectural students invited to enter VELUX competition

© Franck Boston – 123RF.com

The International VELUX Award takes place every second year and is part of the VELUX Groups’ continuous effort to establish and nurture relations with building professionals - not least architects - their organisations and architectural educational institutions worldwide.

This year's competition strives to encourage and challenge students to explore the role of daylight in architecture.

“We want to pay tribute to daylight and to strengthen the role of daylight in building design,” says Per Arnold Andersen, head of International VELUX Award. “For centuries, daylight has been the primary source of light for the interior, and architects have always been interested in and fascinated by it; yet daylighting can be a difficult discipline to approach, understand and master.”

The overall theme of the International VELUX Award 2016 is Light of Tomorrow. The award seeks to inspire students of architecture to consider how to use sunlight and daylight as main sources of energy and light, and how to ensure the health and well-being of people who live and work in buildings. A crucial challenge is how to transform the existing building stock, with strategic use of daylight as a key driver for change.

Focus of projects

The overall scope is daylight in architecture and projects should focus on either:

• Daylight in buildings - with projects that demonstrate applicable principles for providing daylight and sunlight into buildings; or
  
• Daylight investigations - with projects that examine such factors as the physical properties of light, new materials, or daylight for health and well-being.

The award is an ‘open idea’ competition and is organised globally in two phases: in the first phase, regional prizes will be given to projects from Western Europe; Eastern Europe and the Middle East; the Americas; Asia and Oceania; and Africa. In the grand finale, prizes will be presented to the overall global winners.

The jury consists of Omar Gandhi from Canada, owner of a design studio and part-time lecturer in Architecture and Planning at Dalhousie University; Christine Murray (UK), chief editor of one of the world’s leading architectural magazines, Architectural Review; Zbigniew Reszka, co-founder of the Polish architect office ARCHDECO; Francesco Veenstra, a partner of the Mecanoo architecture firm in the Netherlands; and Per Arnold Andersen from the VELUX Group.

Registration for the International VELUX Award 2016 is open until 31 March 2016. Registered students must submit their final project by 31 May 2016 and all entries will be exhibited on iva.velux.com.