George Clarke Announces Young Winners of EcoFix Design Challenge
The winners of the Ecofix radical retrofit young persons' design challenge with Grimshaw and Mace have been announced by George Clarke.
The challenge with international architecture practice Grimshaw and international consultancy and construction company Mace , asked young people to design innovative and inspirational ways to reuse existing homes and buildings to reduce their energy impact.
The built environment accounts for 40% of our carbon emissions and there are around 27 million homes in the UK that need to be retrofitted by 2050 if we are to achieve our net zero obligations and avoid 1.5 degrees of warming.
Young people, aged between 12 and 25, selected existing buildings and thought about how they could be brought back into active use and how their energy use could be radically improved through retrofit - the updating, upgrading and repurposing of buildings. Entries addressed properties from London to Newcastle, and Shropshire to Suffolk. The winning designs included the conversion of a terraced house, adapting it for disabled occupants, the reuse of an old mill building as a family home, a historic hospital as an elderly community and the conversion of former Cold War aircraft hangars to apartments for young workers.
George Clarke said:
“Home is the most important piece of architecture in our lives. The communities and homes of the future will be lived in by today’s young people. They are passionate about reducing the impacts of climate change, so who better to ask for ideas about how we can retrofit our existing buildings."Clarke added:
“I expected to see incredible design talent and imagination come forward and I was not disappointed! The winners came up with inspirational designs. It is clear young people have great ideas about how to reuse old buildings and how we can reduce their environmental impact. The future of the built environment is in great hands with talent like this around".
Andy Thomas, Partner at Grimshaw said:
“The power of creativity and imagination to solve today’s complex and challenging issues, particularly climate change, needs to be embraced and it is fantastic to see our next generation bringing this to bear in this challenge. The diversity and breadth of the entries demonstrated the opportunity we have in our communities today. It is important that the ideas in this challenge have resonance – they should inspire the design and construction industry to make deep and lasting change for a net zero, regenerative future".
Rachel O’Donnell, Consult lead for Retrofit at Mace, commented:
“Decarbonising our buildings and infrastructure is essential to tackling the climate crisis, as well as creating cities and places that are resilient and fit for the future. The quality of the entries to the competition was incredibly high. We are excited by how these inspiring young people looked far beyond the business-as-usual to research and innovate in pursuit of a low carbon future. Their creations offer hope that the next generation of built environment specialists will enter the industry equipped with passion, imagination and expertise to combat the climate crisis and decarbonise the built environment".
- 12-15 years – Team Micros Kosmos – Maariyah and Trinuha, Ursuline Academy, Ilford
- 16-18 years – Grace Hawkins, Tenbury High School, Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire
- 19+ years – joint winners – Team Spatial Office - Giorgia Deriu, Emily Robson, Jack Smailes and Jack Crowther, Teesside University; and
- Team Derive - Abi Smith, Charlotte Dowdall, Chelsie Clay, Farah Said, Grace Sharp, Teesside University
Nottingham Girls’ Academy were runners up in the 12-15 age group and Wootton Park School, Northampton (12-15) and Rosa Wilde (19+) were highly commended entries.