by 2022 VELUX award winners announced
In early December, International’s global winners VELUX The 2022 Award, a competition for architecture students celebrating the innovative and creative use of daylight in a wide variety of projects, has been announced.
(above) Students of the University of the Arts in Tehran, Sajjad Navidi, Mahya Mousavi Sadr, Elham Bahadori were behind Flight, which came first in the Daylight Investigations category. Photo: “ITCHY”
all images courtesy of VELUX
This isn’t something most of us spend a lot of time thinking about, but ask an architect for an assessment of daylight and you begin to realize what an extraordinary resource this is. It is not only an inexhaustible source of energy that nourishes us with light, but also supports our health and well-being, and plays an invaluable role in cultural art and architecture. Plus it’s free.
Daylight as a source of problem-solving innovation
What am I talking about? Recently there are several architecture students around the world who have been thinking deeply about daylight, what it can give us, how it can evolve and what role it can play in our future world. These are the ones who entered VELUX‘s biennial competition – International VELUX Award – Featuring the theme of ‘Tomorrow’s Light’ and with a total of over 500 numbers. In July of this year, a distinguished jury of architects made up of John Ronan (USA), Anupama Kundoo (India), Rainer Hofmann (Germany), Lotte Kragelund (Denmark) and Fuensanta Nieto (Spain) eliminated ten regional winners from eight different architectures. . On December 2, during the biannual World Architecture Festival, this time in Lisbon, they listened to their presentations and selected two winners overall.
Zuzanna Sazonow and Aleksandra Pytka, students of Poland Politechnika Poznańska, won an award in the category of Daylight in Buildings with their TIP: Time Indicate Protection project. Photo: “ITCHY”
velux promotes original, future-proof design solutions
VELUX, of course, is a renowned supplier of windows – typically the type that gives light to reclaimed roof areas or structures that can only be lit from above. The resource in question is obviously essential to the brand’s existence, but few parameters are put into the way the sunshine is discovered and celebrated for reward. This is truly limitless academic research of one source, with thought-provoking and varied results.
Light is not only an inexhaustible source of energy, but also supports our health and well-being. Plus it’s free
There are two categories of Buildings, Daylight and Daylight Inspections. Entries in the previous category included a study by students from Beijing Jiaotong University in Beijing on the role of daylight in security and crime prevention in a growing number of urban villages in China. Elmarie van Staden of the Greenside Design Center at the Johannesburg College of Design in South Africa developed Aqua Mart, a place where relaxation can be sought while water is purified: daylight is directed to provide sterilization, shade from scorching heat and create soothing patterns.
Close-up view of Poznan students’ project – modular shading system that addresses the problem of overheating of buildings increasing in summer
In the category of Sunlight Studies, an intriguing proposal by a group of students from Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu involved the creation of a festival to reconnect communities to the lands they formerly lived in – before the floods of the three gorges displaced them. During its time, eco-friendly river lanterns are launched to illuminate the sunken world of buildings and monuments and provide a dreamy reconnection to the land that 1.2 million migrants are said to have lost.
