Isover competition in Prague!

22 May 2011: The UK Team of 9 students, DNc and Phil went to Prague for the Isover world final, accompanied by Tom Foster of Isover UK.

We were royally treated in the Crowne Plaza hotel, north of Prague city centre (near the University campus) and saw 56 presentations from 19 countries (3 from each, except Germany who had 2).
All of our teams did excellent verbal presentations, and Green Canyons came second in the world final.

Isover UK organised the process very well, and the exhibition of 8 of the projects at Ecobuild required a much earlier timeline starting in October with a completion by end of January - after which we had stages that took us to the final in Prague. Some of the other countries hadn't started until April 2011.

  We gave the entire Tall Buildings unit an extra week (until 1st June) for their main project to compensate for these days in Prague. It was a great experience for all, although we would prefer to have come first!

Some Nottingham questions answered

Manhattan Sky Podium, winners of the Public's Choice for
the Isover 2011 award at Ecobuild

29 Mar '11: We recently had a set of questions from the University of Nottingham Press office, who want to write up the story of the success of our students in achieving high places in the Isover 2011 contest. They asked us a number of questions, so that they can extract some quotations.

Here are our answers in full, jointly written by DNC and Phil:


Q. Nottingham had 7 out of 8 finalists and all 3 of the eventual winning teams - what does this say about the quality of the teaching we offer and the standard of students we have?
A. We run the world’s first dedicated Masters course and qualification focused on Sustainable Tall Building Architecture. With the teaching skills and time commitment we feed into this, we would have been surprised if we had not performed well – for our University to win all three prizes is fantastic. We are extra-happy that all of our students were recognised at some level in the competition – either as finalists or highly commended. We always remember that it is our students who do the work when ink has to be applied to paper, and we get a thrill seeing such excellent designs being produced. We are confident that this will be a great lift for them in their future working careers. It is a great honour for a student from overseas to find themselves representing the United Kingdom in an international competition of such high profile.

Q. Are you confident that the students' designs will stand up to the international competition they will face in May?
A. We apply the Olympian ideal that it is a wonderful experience just to be taking part in such distinguished company - if we win a medal or two that will be a great achievement. The Central European teams, with their longstanding knowledge of Passive House concepts have dominated the Isover competition for years. We have done additional work between March and May to strengthen our entries and give the students the best possible chance. The skyscrapers in the Isover competition are an attempt to define a new standard for Passivhaus at high altitude. They have systems enabling them to operate without boiler rooms, or any burning of fossil fuel - entirely heated by passive gain and by stored solar heat, captured in summer and delivered in winter. We hope that our student’s pedigree of knowledge in tall building design, and the expertise we can offer them, will help give us a winning edge in Prague.

Q. With the High Rise Architecture Studio at Nottingham do you think the future of skyscraper design will come out of Nottingham?
A. We have been teaching high-rise architecture at Nottingham for some nine years now, and over this time the Department of Architecture and Built Environment has gained the reputation as a centre of excellence in the subject internationally. Not only is the subject taught at a Masters level within the department, but increasing is being researched by students at a PhD level. Our students are developing new design strategies, architectural philosophies, facades, components, systems and more for the sustainable skyscrapers of the future.
   In the current era of climate change, energy famine and population growth, sustainability has become a primary design driver, and this applies to all aspects of urban habitat. Glassy air-conditioned developer-led blocks are not our game. ‘Sustainable’ is the first word in the title of our Masters course, and this concept predominates in our studio projects. We view the role of our unit as a ‘design research team’, exploring the difficult challenges architects will face in years to come. This should lead to enlightenment of these future professionals and give them the courage to apply these ideas in their country. We teach students to respond to climatic issues, even in very hot, humid or very cold climates; we expect them to understand urban context, seeing their work as part of the ‘bigger picture’ of the urban habitat, transportation, population and economy. In locations like Singapore and Hong Kong, mixed-use tall buildings are a necessity due to land shortage - and high rise is a normal pattern of living. We expect them to understand local culture, the notions of extended family, privacy, community and religious groupings. We trust that our graduates will take this wide ranging idea of sustainability into their future careers as architects all over the globe. Although we still produce designs the like of which have never been built, the visionary approach in our work has to be the future of tall buildings, and we are seeing many of these concepts appearing in modern examples in Asia, Europe and even in the United States.
   All of our work is archived and publicised on the CTBUH website, and plays its part in opinion-forming in the future design of urban centres. For more information, please see the CTBUH website:

See the Nottingham University final Press release about the Isover competition (not forgetting that there is still another stage to go!)

Ipods shared around

28 Mar '11 : We were pleased to hear from Isover that the SSW team with their Manhattan Sky Podium were the winners of the public vote at Ecobuild 201l.
    We felt that back in early March, the judges were strongly focused on the Passivhaus research so they placed this scheme fourth, but the tutors are delighted that the public recognised the excellent urbanistic response of the Manhattan Sky Podium. This was a valiant effort to retain sun and view lines for the distinguished 80 year old skyscraper immediately to the north of the site. The scheme was a skilful exhibition of structural acrobatics, organising the offices and hotel elements to form a giant outdoor room that would be another wonder of Manhattan. Above that, the building provides for a high residential population enjoying carbon neutral living and the classiest address in the city.
  The team members will win an iPod Touch each.
 (Sam Holt, Shreela Sharan, Willie Yogotama)

EcoBuild - we've done it!

4 Mar '11: We had seven New York skyscraper designs on show, and three of our teams won the UK prize, and now we look forward to the World final shoot-out in Prague in May. The prize giving was on Weds afternoon 2nd March. More photos later...

You can read a long blog report from one of the judges, Hattie Hartman of the Architects Journal, and she has included the webcam stream of the prize giving.
http://blog.emap.com/footprint/2011/03/03/isover-student-competition-finale/
The final winners were Green Canyons, second were Social Tower Experiment, and third were the Green Ramp. Three of the students in these groups are M. Arch STB registered. Well done!
You can see a list of the shortlisted entries, with hi res images at the 2011 Isover Multi Comfort house site.

Gabriel Golumbeau (Isover), Prof Wolfgang Feist (Passivhaus), Guillermo Guzman
and DNC (University of Nottingham), at Ecobuiild 2011

Isover reveal the finalists!

8 Feb '11: Isover have now published thumbnails and larger images of the finalists in the Isover 2011 competition. (this still has 2 stages to run).
http://www.multicomforthouse.co.uk/student-competition-2011/shortlist/

All of these are using, to varying extents, interseasonal solar storage to supply heat to heat pumps, using a composition of solar thermal panels and PV panels on the south facade, with thermal stores on the north face or in mechanical floors.

Tall Building students doing well!

2 Feb '11: The skyscraper designs produced by our Tall Building students have all done very well in the Isover competition. We submitted 9 schemes, and 7 were chosen as finalists, and the remaining 2 were highly commended. Only one other scheme from the UK was included in the total of eight finalists.
   We cannot put the schemes up as illustrations yet, because we have a second and third stage to go to, and therefore more details have to be added. We are not ready to release the full details of the designs.
  Needless to say, we set the students the task of designing the upper residential sections with ZERO heating from any form of burning - no gas, oil or direct electricity! We have devised systems for doing this. At the second stage, we will get engineer colleagues to validate the quantities required.
   We shall be showing these schemes on our model of New York - all nine of our designs - at Ecobuild 1-3 March 2011, Excel Centre in east London, on one of the largest stands of the show near the entrance. Please call in!
  The best three from the UK will be invited to Prague for the final  in May, so at least 2 of our groups will have an invite and a prizes.

All submitted to the Isover!

26 Jan '11: The students improved their work after the crit, and the final submission date was 24th Jan.

Open publication - Free publishing - More new york

It is great that the Nottingham students managed 100% completion and submission, with some great improvements to the panels since the crit. We had been pretty free with our pens all over the drawings during the crit with ideas for improvement and addition, all of which seem to have been listened to and done. 

Crit for the Passive Skyscraper

19 Jan'11: It has been a superhuman effort, but between 32 of us, we have, mostly succeeded. I say mostly, because this is only the completion of stage one, the Isover competition is global, and we have more stages to go. This stage has to be uploaded to Isover next week and then will be considered during that week. I cannot post images on this blog until after the judges have decided.

DNC and Phil, standing, with international students
of the design team providing a wonderful dinner.

  We remain hopeful that a few of our schemes will be good enough to be considered for display at Ecobuild in March 2011, at Earls Court.

Ivan Jovanovic and Chris Gaylord joined us for the day from London, as examiners. The students had the unnerving experience of having us study the drawings in silence for the first 5 minutes, imagining that we were Isover judges without the luxury of students present to explain things. Then we allowed them to talk, explain, and of course answer questions. The whole conversation concluded with as much advice as we could give them for improving the panels before the competition submission. Ivan and DNC focused strongly on the Passivhaus strategy and explanation, and wider environmental aspects. Chris and Philip focused on urbanistic presence, tall building planning and configuration. Together, we hope that the students know what to do for the remainder of the week.

  Many of us met up later in the evening, in Nosh, in Beeston market, for very good chinese dinner!

Phil's Podcast lecture on Tall Buildings

November '10: Isover are running their global student competition to be a vertical mixed-use multi-comfort tower for a site in New York. As the University of Nottingham have such expertise in Tall Buildings, Isover asked Phil to do a webcast lecture that would help all taking part. This is visible on:
www.multicomforthouse.co.uk/student-competition-2011/resources/lectures/
We have nine groups doing towers on the New York site, but we would welcome more schools or more student groups from elsewhere trying this project. It is very challenging, and we have had a month already of site analysis and early design.

High rise in New York

August: We are thinking ahead to the first semester of 2010-2011, and our plan is to do the Isover competition - this is for a 60 storey residential re-interpretation of the Passivhaus idea, fit for city living in a high density location - a very different context from the one that Passivhaus was developed for.
  But wait - it's not as stupid an idea as it sounds! an apartment in a tall block has, theoretically, extremely good insulation above, below, to the sides and to the rear, because it is sharing with others. The only part facing the exterior is the facade, which needs to be very well designed. And shared services such as heat recovery and water recycling can more easily be done in an apartment block than in a single house.... So we'll do it! Decision made!
    It is an international competition, with schools in each country invited to take part. The leading school of Architecture in each country will get an intermediate prize, and then there is a final stage in Prague in 2011. The intermediate prize for UK competitors will include to have one's model exhibited at Ecobuild 2011, London, March 2011. Isover will publish a book next year showing the pick of the entries, so we could hope to get some of our students' work published.  We have been asked to build the site model for the UK version, even if other UK schools take part.