International VELUX Award 2008: Winners announced
Venice, Italy, November 11 (ots/PRNewswire)
Three winners and eight honourable mentions were presented and honoured at an Award event in Venice. Reilly O'Neil Hogan from the US won first prize. Chinese Ruan Hao and Xiong Xing won second prize, and Dean MacGregor from Portugal took third prize.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081111/327211-a ) (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081111/327211-b ) (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081111/327211-c )
In his project "Embodied Ephemerality" (i.e. lasting for a short time) Reilly O'Neil Hogan discusses how to challenge the daily city routines by getting off the subway at a new (wrong) station. How when you are forced to drift from your routine, you perceive the city with new eyes - in this case the Path station in Lower Manhattan. Hogan experiments with the projection of sunlight into the underground station to elevate the daily experience of the users.
"I feel that light and space have a profound effect on people's every day experience. It has a universal appeal through time, place and belief, which gives light an incredible power as a material to enliven architecture with something greater than ourselves," says first prize winner Reilly O'Neil Hogan about his project.
Chinese Ruan Hao and Xiong Xing took second prize with their project "Interface Repairing - Light Festival" celebrating sunlight in the city. And third prize went to Dean MacGregor from Portugal for his project "Light has a body", taking the essence of light and focusing on the way that light enters and exposes itself through the refraction of water.
In addition to the three prize winners the jury awarded eight honourable mentions from eleven different countries representing Europe, North America and Asia.
The total number of 686 projects from 244 schools in 46 countries represented a great variation of responses to the theme "Light of Tomorrow". Jury chairman, Hani Rashid, remarks on the award winners:
"I am very pleased with the winners because they cover three distinct parts of the entire propagation that we see in The International VELUX Award. We have the practical, the visionary and the poetic approaches among the winners that somehow sum up what all the students were after in their projects."
Promoting discussions on daylight
VELUX has always had a strong wish to facilitate the debate on natural daylight and fresh air in architecture. Michel Langrand, who was VELUX representative on the jury, explains:
"To succeed today as a company you need to have a vision or a project that goes beyond the product that you sell. What comes to us is to recognize the importance of daylight and fresh air through the roof into the building. So it is not only about selling windows, it is more about how important it is to have daylight and fresh air at an affordable price and still create the best living environment for people."
The International VELUX Award for Students of Architecture takes place every second year, next time in 2010. All winning projects are presented in the Yearbook published for the Award event. All Award entries are exhibited on http://www.velux.com/iva.
Detailed information about the winners, photos, and graphics are available for download from the press section in the above mentioned website.
About VELUX
VELUX creates better living environments with daylight and fresh air through the roof. Our product programme contains a wide range of roof windows and skylights, along with solutions for flat roofs. In addition, VELUX offers many types of decoration and sun screening, roller shutters, installation products, products for remote control and thermal solar panels for installation in roofs. VELUX, which has manufacturing companies in 10 countries and sales companies in just under 40 countries, is one of the strongest brands in the global building materials sector and its products are sold in most parts of the world. The VELUX Group has more than 10,000 employees and is owned by VKR Holding A/S. VKR Holding A/S is a limited company wholly owned by foundations and family. For more details, visit http://www.velux.com.
For further information, please contact:
Lone Ellersgaard
VELUX A/S
Adalsvej 99
DK-2970 Horsholm
Tel office: +45-45-16-40-00
Tel direct: +45-45-16-48-18
Tel mob: +45-40-40-71-56
lone.ellersgaard@velux.comContact:
For further information, please contact:, Lone Ellersgaard, VELUX
A/S, Adalsvej 99, DK-2970 Horsholm, Tel office: +45-45-16-40-00, Tel
direct: +45-45-16-48-18, Tel mob: +45-40-40-71-56,
lone.ellersgaard@velux.com