Jury Chairman's Introduction

Sustainability is a phenomenon that nowadays reaches all aspects of human development. It has special relevance in urban planning, environment and landscape treatment, architecture, technology and design. 

Sustainability must be considered at the beginning of any approach, having a conscious mind for the use of the limited earth resources. It is not a bound to creativity, but a demand of responsibility that increases the necessary awareness to solve the problems of our tasks. Arbitrariness must yield the right of way to knowledge. Reflection must weigh up the consequences of our interventions. Both, knowledge and reflection, made progress possible at the time that human being and nature were evenly balanced and wastage took immense efforts. The scale of intervention was at that time very narrow. The constraints themselves required intelligent coordinated actions and efficient use of knowledge. The results were balanced and adapted to the circumstances of each place.

Because of the enormous technological development power at our disposal, our interventions need intelligence and responsibility to restore that ecological balance and avoid our devastating capacity. 

Creativity needs a clear mind and freeness to see reality as it is and not as we would like to see it. Analysing must be a deepening process that allows us to reveal reality, its potential and the results of our interventions. Nowadays creativity can not be anything else as the capacity of understanding and synthesizing complex phenomena, in an intelligent way, including reason and emotion, and sagacity strength to discover the heart of the problems we face. Creativity should bring us to the most precise answer. Intelligence will be in that case the best support of the beauty we all need.

In this edition of the Price for Sustainable Architecture, the jury has appreciated the work of participants and has assessed and judged according the social, economical, technological and architectural quality of the projects.

For the first time the Award introduces the division of participants into three categories (Sustainable Architecture and Technologies, Urban and Landscape Sustainable Design, Sustainable Industrial Design). In the Sustainable Industrial Design category contributions have been limited to few projects, about ten. These projects, in spite of the small number, ranged from the design of innovative building components, product design, design for urban mobility and design of infrastructure systems. This wide variety of issues has been highly appreciated by the jury; however, although highly interesting ideas have been presented, none of the projects was considered to develop a really innovative and sustainable design, necessary to justify a full medal award appreciation. 

 

Victor López Cotelo

 

The Jury

Prof. Victor López Cotelo, Chairman

Prof. Erik Bystrup

Prof. Werner Lang