ENERGY has become a powerful topic in the architectural debate on sustainable building. It is taking a prominent position next to reuse, CO2 emissions, reductions on waste materials and other environmental impacts. Current trends in addressing these issues tend to focus on imposing approaches, in which reducing, minimizing, restricting and preventing seem to be the buzz-words.

This competition seeks to investigate the inherent characteristics of one material, concrete, in relation to ENERGY. It asks to evaluate those properties of concrete that make it a relevant and versatile material for ‘energy-aware’ applications. It aims to fully pursue the potential of core properties like mass, volume, surface textures, mixtures and hybrids, in acting on current needs and ambitions.

The 5th Concrete Design Competition - ENERGY stands for a comprehensive strategy to optimize the relations between the built environment and its users. Production and consumption of energy can be dealt with intelligently when taking into account day and lifetime cycles. Storage and distribution needs to be managed with programmatic varieties in mind. Developing built structures that produce energy is part of a more inclusive approach as well.

ENERGY signifies a powerful presence in an architectural sense. How buildings activate and facilitate their users; how they project vitality to their surroundings in form and material – simply by how architecture is.

This competition aims to maximise the material’s potential in its combined technical, physical and architectural opportunities. Applied mass can be embraced to facilitate ‘formal’ and expressive desires that so far have suffered in richness through strategies of minimizing. Simultaneously mass can be deployed to offer capacity for harvesting and storing warmth and coolness. Required volumes and structures can extend in meaning and use beyond their original task of facilitating program. Surfaces and structures can both be visually enticing and can be optimized to capture, store and transport energy.

Students are asked to explore and exploit the potential of concrete’s properties with respect to any notion on ENERGY. These can range from issues of vitality, robustness, dynamic behavior and architectural presence to energy production, storage and consumption. Competition entries need to address technical and functional aspects as well as formal and programmatic ones – ideas need to be tested through design proposals to demonstrate their potential convincingly. They will be reviewed on the combination of inventiveness in addressing the competition’s theme and architectural implications.

This competition does not prescribe a specific location or program; participants can choose a context of their own that supports their fascinations and ambitions and that fits an acute presentation of their ideas and solutions. The design proposals may range from objects, furniture and architectural details to housing, landscape interventions, complex buildings, infrastructure and structural systems.

The 5th Concrete Design Competition – ENERGY runs in five European countries during the academic year 2011 - 2012. National laureates will be invited to participate in a week long international workshop facilitated by the industry’s expertise featuring renowned lecturers and critics, further exploring concrete and ENERGY.

For detailed information on required content and format of entries see the ‘rules’ sections of this website.