UIA Student Design Competition winners announced
In August 2022 we announced that the NOVELL Redesign Team had collaborated with the International Union of Architects (UIA) to launch a student design competition titled “Next Generation of Stroke Rehabilitation Centres.” The competition was sponsored by UIA and the Australian Health Design Council.
The goal of the competition was to think out of the box and come up with new and ambitious ideas for designing stroke rehabilitation centres. Entries were asked to address the aspects of design highlighted in the work of the NOVELL Redesign project, such as how to increase stroke survivors' control over their personal space in rehab or to improve stroke survivors' integration with the community and the real world.
Other evaluation criteria included: creative approach, quality of architectural design, innovation regarding how the built environment supports stroke survivor’s experiences, adequacy of the proposal/program, feasibility and functional aspects, and pertinence of the overall concept.
A total of 177 entries were received from 175 teams across 40 countries. The submissions were narrowed down to 46 entries, which was subsequently reduced to a shortlist of 16 entries. The shortlist was then evaluated, and 5 prize winners as well as 7 honourable mentions were chosen, with the first, second, and third place winners receiving their awards at the UIA World Congress of Architects, Copenhagen, July 2023. You can view all the prize-winning designs, as well as the honourable mentions, on the UIA website.
First place was awarded to Zheyuan Zhao, Jiayu Sun, Yutong Sun, Haibo Sun, and Fei Lian (Advisor) from the Harbin Institute of Technology in China for their Xhosa Miracle Spring project. The Jury praised the provision of culturally appropriate, economically feasible solutions for Xhosa stroke survivors in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, a region characterised by rural poverty and an extremely arid climate.
Second place was awarded to Zuozheng Shi, Han Cui, Biao Chen, Xiaohui Guo, Wen Ouyang (Advisor), and Tingwan Huang (Advisor) from the Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture in China. The jury noted the team's depiction of a user's daily use of the facility as a particular highlight of the submission.
Third place was awarded to Byeongsoo Kim and Kyeonghyeon Park from Kwangwoon University in South Korea. The jury deemed the idea of a water garden with a grassy bottom doubling as a conduit for natural light to illuminate the therapy pool directly underneath it as particularly innovative.
Fourth place was awarded to Sidoine Baudrel Nde Keulek, Steve Wilson Ntakam Tonguembo, Lizette Marlaine Tsafack Donfack, and Emy Sandrine Masso from the National Advanced School of Public Works in Cameroon. The jury praised the low-cost construction, as well as the leveraging of vernacular architectural style and local materials.
Fifth place was awarded to Meng Chen, Nan Jiang, Fujia Lv, Yutong Li, and Hsin-Hsien Chiu (Advisor) from the Harbin Institute of Technology in China. The jury praised the small-scale, decentralized care clusters that forged cozy, homelike atmospheres.
Honourable mentions were awarded to teams from the following Institutions:
University of Texas at San Antonio (USA)
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana)
University of Sharjah (UAE)
Silesian University of Technology (Poland)
Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (Poland)
Wuhan University (China)
National Advanced School of Public Works (Cameroon).
The UIA Award Ceremony, Copenhagen, July 2023
From left: Second place winners, first place winners, José Luis Cortés (UIA, President), Ray Pentecost (Director, UIA Public Health Work Programme), Belinda Seale (NOVELL), Pei Ing Tan (UIA General Secretary), and third place prize winners.