ACE MSc students win Sustainable Retrofit Challenge 2013
A group of Environmental Design MSc students from the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering have won the Sustainable Retrofit Challenge 2013.
The design competition challenged groups to retrofit the existing chemistry building at the University of Cambridge. The brief was to come up with a sustainable, innovative, yet realistic design, focusing on three areas: heating and cooling; solar gain; and equipment loads. They were also asked to consider the building and user needs alongside heritage and conservation issues.
The University of Bath students, Nishesh Jain, Bakti Kawibawan and Jingnan Wu beat three other groups (two from Cambridge and one from Northumbria) to win the £1000 prize.
The trio presented their findings to a panel of academics, industry experts and representatives from Cambridge City Council. The judges commented that their design solution for the facade was "daring" and also commended them for making a very crisp presentation packed with enough detail to explain the scheme in ten minutes.
Sukumar Natarajan, the Director of Studies for MSc, said:
"It is great to see that the enormous amount of work these students put into this challenge really paid off. They had to juggle the main submission of their final taught unit, the Passivhaus exam and the entry for this competition all at the same time. Their innovative design was really impressive and they truly deserved to win."
