Spotted: Just like sunshine, wind is a fairly constant aspect of the weather, yet as an energy source, it still suffers from variability. Now, a small, sleek wind turbine that generates power from winds as low as five miles per hour could tackle this issue and be one of the swiftest ways for buildings to become carbon neutral. Created by Aeromine Technologies, the bladeless turbines take up a fraction of the footprint of traditional wind farms and produce the same amount of power as that of 16 solar panels.
Designed specifically for use on top of large buildings with flat roofs, the turbines are easy to install and maintain, particularly because they do not have rotor blades. The turbines connect directly to a building’s electrical system and work much like a racecar does, using aerodymanic designs to amplify the flow of air away from the structure. Despite working constantly, the turbines are completely silent.
Aeromine generally installs 20 to 40 of the turbines on the side of a building’s roof that receives the most consistent wind. That is usually enough to provide all of the power required by a large commercial or residential building. When combined with solar, a building could run completely on renewable energy.
Making better use of ignored spaces is a particularly effective means of reducing reliance on petrol power. Springwise has spotted small turbines harnessing hydroelectric power from slow flowing streams and rivers, as well as nanotechnology being used to generate energy from locations where rivers meet the sea.
London studio Macdonald Wright Architects has created the low-energy and heavily insulated Library House on an infill plot in Hackney.
Designed as a rental property for studio founder James Macdonald Wright, the two-storey home was built on a four-metre-wide plot, which was previously used as a junkyard adjacent to the listed Clapton Library.
Macdonald Wright Architects has created a house on an infill plot in Hackney
The aim of the project was to demonstrate how an affordable, low-energy house could be created using simple yet robust materials.
Macdonald Wright Architects wanted to use the opportunity to study the energy performance of the home, which has the same footprint as “the average UK dwelling”, to inform its future projects.
The standard focuses on using simple techniques and technologies to reduce the operational carbon dioxide emissions of a building by 70 per cent when compared to the average UK structure of the same size and typology.
The material palette was chosen to be simple yet robust
“We selected the AECB route over Passivhaus because it offered a more practical and affordable route to achieving excellent performance,” the studio’s founder told Dezeen.
“The AECB Building Standard is aimed at those wishing to create high-performance buildings using widely available technology,” Macdonald Wright explained.
Douglas fir and spruce detailing features throughout
This standard was met by creating a heavily insulated external envelope for the dwelling, teamed with a Passivhaus-rated front door and triple glazed windows and roof lights.
To retain heat, the house also makes use of mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR). It achieves an airtightness of 1.3 [email protected], which is significantly less than UK building regulations that require airtightness of 10 [email protected] or less. This refers to the number of air changes per hour at a pressure difference of 50 pascals.
All the windows are triple glazed
The dwelling is complete with an electric boiler for top-up heating and a photovoltaic array, from which surplus electricity is supplied to the national grid.
Since completion, the house has been occupied by private tenants. However, the electricity bill has been monitored and paid for by Macdonald Wright Architects.
The studio has calculated that the “operational energy for heating the house is a tenth of the requirement of a new build house under current building standards”.
Blue Lias stone is used as flooring
Visually, the Library House is designed to mirror the proportions, styles and details of the neighbouring red brick library and a row of white cottages.
Lime-pointed white brickwork is teamed with a russet-hued Corten steel panel outside, which incorporates the front door and perforated solar shading for the first floor.
The russet-hued front door is Passivhaus-rated
Materials used throughout Library House were selected to minimise the need for maintenance and reduce the embodied-carbon footprint of the dwelling.
This includes the use of Porotherm clay block party walls and timber structure, along with internal finishes such as Blue Lias stone flooring sourced and sustainably sourced douglas fir and spruce detailing.
Internally, walls are predominantly finished in a parge coat, trowelled over the Porotherm clay blockwork for a textured finish that also contributes to the home’s high airtightness.
Macdonald Wright Architects hopes that the Library House will become a “scalable prototype” and inform its future projects at various scales.
Porotherm clay blocks are used on party walls
“Each project we complete informs the next,” Macdonald Wright explained. “The use of Porotherm block and Larsen Truss has helped us develop techniques of external envelope construction we are now developing in larger scale designs.”
“By focusing on the build quality, airtightness and thermal performance of the external envelope construction we can reduce the overall cost of building to higher levels of sustainability,” he continued.
Corten steel functions as solar shading
Another recently completed low-energy house on Dezeen is the Devon Passivhaus, which McLean Quinlan nestled into a sloped walled garden of an old English country house.
The building’s envelope performs to the highly energy-efficient Passivhaus standard, achieved using substantial amounts of insulation and triple glazing throughout.
Rooflights feature throughout the house
Macdonald Wright founded his eponymous studio in east London in 2005. Another notable project by the studio is the Caring Wood country house in Kent, which won the 2017 RIBA House of the Year.
Designed in collaboration with architect Niall Maxwell, the dwelling is topped with chimney-like roofs and provides a residence for three generations of the same family.
Spotted: Around 8 million tonnes of plastic is dumped into the oceans every year. And roughly 80 per cent of this plastic waste actually started out in rivers. Complicating cleanup was a finding in which researchers concluded that more than 1,000 rivers are responsible for most of the plastic that ends up in the ocean. The researchers also found that most of that waste is carried by small rivers that flow through densely populated urban areas, not the largest rivers.
To tackle this plastic scourge, Germany-based enterprise Plastic Fischer has developed a floating barrier, called TrashBoom, designed to prevent plastic waste from reaching the ocean. The startup was founded by three students, who realised during a trip to Vietnam that the river view from their balcony was actually a stream of plastic waste floating on the surface. The TrashBoom is a floating fence constructed from locally available materials that traps the plastic. The waste is then manually gathered and transported to sorting facilities.
All recyclables are reintroduced into the supply chain and unrecyclable materials are sent to certified Thermal Recovery Plants. All of the TrashBooms are built locally, with locally sourced, low-tech materials. The projects are managed by locally hired staff and project managers, with only two full-time employees working in Europe. The entire process is verified through plastic recycling platform Empower.
TrashBoom is working in collaboration with a number of oganisations, including Allianz and ‘Make A Change World’ in Bali, and has inspired a number of others. The company says that they, “are very proud that we have managed to motivate other companies like e.g. Sungai Watch, Pangea Movement and other NGOs to copy our approach and stop plastic in rivers with simple technology.”
As the tide of plastic sweeping into rivers, oceans, and every other corner of the globe continues unabated, we are also seeing a growth of innovations aimed at stemming it. These include other types of river barrier projects, ocean barrier projects and the use of ships scrubbers and autonomous robots to remove plastic.
ERA Architects has refurbished a postwar social housing building in Hamilton, Ontario, making it the largest residential building in the world to achieve Passivhaus EnerPHit certification.
ERA used the North American elaboration on European Passivhaus standards for energy efficiency to retrofit the Ken Soble Tower, an 18-storey apartment building constructed in 1967.
Ken Soble tower is the tallest retrofitted Passivehaus in the world. Photo by Codrin Talaba
The firm also added elements that address issues of social welfare for the elderly and changing health requirements since the coronavirus pandemic.
The largest public housing building in Hamilton, a city southwest of Toronto on Lake Ontario, the tower was in a state of disrepair and selected for renovation by the Canadian National Housing Strategy’s Repair and Renewal Fund.
ERA Architects was commissioned to renovate the tower by CityHousing Hamilton. Photo by DoubleSpace
The apartment complex will continue to serve low-income and senior residents under the portfolio of CityHousing Hamilton.
Constructed in a simple brutalist style, the tower is one of the thousands of such buildings built in Canada in the period following the second world war.
The renovation updated the brutalist envelope. Photo by DoubleSpace
The structure is now certified under the Passivhaus EnerPHit category, particular to retrofitted buildings.
In order to achieve the status, ERA updated the cladding of the structure to ensure thermal performance and airtightness. R38 overcladding was used on top of the existing concrete in order to minimise changes to the envelope.
A solarium and garden space were added to the top floor. Photo by DoubleSpace
“The resulting cladding design includes a 150-millimetre-thick mineral wool EIFS system, not widely used in the local market, complete with an integrated drainage layer and new fluid-applied air barrier membrane,” said the architects.
Canadian-made, fibreglass-framed, Passivhaus-certified windows were used to maximise the effectiveness of the mechanical systems.
A “five stage” cooling system was used throughout the building. This includes the glazing, the low-emissivity interior shades, ceiling fans, a centralised ventilation system, and decentralised Variable Air Volume Units.
Glazing and cladding was used to increase the effectiveness of the heating and cooling. Photo by Codrin Talaba
The architects acknowledged that centralised cooling systems are not typical for Passivhaus, also known as Passive House in North America.
“The Passive House standard can at times be at odds with Ontario’s humid climate and local building code,” said ERA.
“The design team identified a high risk of overheating due to high relative humidity in the regional climate zone,” the studio continued. “As such, a centralised air conditioning system was integrated into the design, with resulting impacts on the Passive House energy budget.”
The ground floor has expanded social areas. Photo by Codrin Talaba
The studio also said that consideration of changing environments due to climate change were factored into the building’s design, such as using 2050 projected climate data.
To address the standards of living for an elderly population, ERA implemented a number of socially minded design programs. For example, a new solarium with views over the harbour and a green roof were added along with “barrier free” suites, high-contrast wayfinding, and expanded community space on the public ground floor.
The apartment interiors have also been renovated by ERA. Photo is by DoubleSpace
Aspects of the heating design are also geared towards resident well-being.
“If power and heat were lost on the coldest day of the year, residents could shelter in place for up to four days, as compared to four hours in a building adhering to the minimum requirements of the Ontario Building Code,” said ERA.
Regarding the aspects of the design informed by the coronavirus pandemic, the studio said that it used “best-in-class” individual suite ventilation to account for direct fresh air delivery.
ERA Architects’ sister non-profit, The Tower Renewal Partnership, has been collecting data to work towards national implementation of such restoration processes.
Ken Soble Tower is one of many Canadian postwar social housing towers. Photo is by DoubleSpace
Other Passivhaus projects in Canada include WKK Architects’ proposed 1075 Nelson Street skyscraper in Vancouver, which, when finished, will become the tallest of its kind building in the world.
Project credits:
Architect team: Graeme Stewart, Ya’el Santopinto, Mikael Sydor, Carolina Streber, Rui Felix, Leah Gibling, Danielle McIntyre, Abbi Kusch, Lauren Marshal Structural: Entuitive Corporation Mechanical: Reinbold Engineering Group Electrical: Nemetz (S/A) and Associates Landscape: ERA Architects Interiors: ERA Architects Contractor: PCL Construction Passive House consultant: JMV Consulting & Transsolar Klimaengineering Third-party Passive House certifier: Herz & Lang Envelope: Entuitive Corporation Elevator: Soberman Engineering Code: LMDG Building Code Consultants Commissioning: CFMS West Consulting Hazardous materials: Pinchin Limited Security/telecommunications: Zerobit1 Construction consultant: SCR Consulting
Spotted: The number of organisations committing to climate targets and offsetting has been growing rapidly. However, this growth also represents a major challenge, because the voluntary carbon market is still in its infancy, meaning there is a lack of credible emission reduction programmes and questionable investments in carbon projects with no actual reductions.
Climate-tech startup Goodcarbon is working to change this by focusing on nature-based solutions (NbS), such as the conservation and restoration of forests or oceans. Through their platform, Goodcarbon connects NbS projects to capital, giving projects a stream of income and allowing organisations to offset their emissions with verified high-quality NbS projects. Project developers can also use the platform to sell Forward Credit contracts and auction ownership shares in their projects.
All projects listed on Goodcarbon are subject to a stringent verification process. The platform works together with existing verification and standardisation bodies such as Verra and Gold Standard, and also applies its own impact assessment scheme to ensure the platform only hosts the highest quality projects. The advantage for businesses is that not only can they invest, secure in the knowledge they are not greenwashing, but they can also use the platform to turn carbon offsetting into an investment opportunity.
According to many, the voluntary carbon market is largely non-transparent and is swamped with low-quality NbS projects that do not actually work. As Jerome Cochet, Co-Founder And Managing Director Of Goodcarbon, points out, “We have a major supply problem as project developers face significant challenges. They have high upfront costs, but a lack of funding, little appreciation of co-benefits such as biodiversity protection, and a high dependence on brokers. We are here to solve these challenges by converting natural capital into financial products.”
As of September 2022, thousands of organisations, representing $38 trillion, have committed to emission reduction targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). So it is no wonder that we are seeing a number of innovations aimed at offsetting. These include a platform that makes it easier for farmers to sell carbon credits, and a blockchain infrastructure for trading in forward carbon credits.
Local studio Multitude of Sins has created an eclectic restaurant interior in Bangalore out of a mishmash of reclaimed materials, including discarded bicycle bells and cassette tape boxes.
Officially called Big Top but known as The Circus Canteen, the restaurant is shortlisted in the sustainable interior category for a 2022 Dezeen Award.
The Circus Canteen interior is made of almost all reclaimed materials
Multitude of Sins sourced the components that make up the interior from a city-wide waste donation drive held over several weeks.
The materials were then painstakingly curated into distinct categories, ranging from home appliances to toy cars, and used to design an eclectic interior featuring mismatched furniture and flooring.
Visitors enter through a series of scrap metal archways
Less than 10 per cent of the materials used to create the interior were sourced as new, according to the studio.
“The Circus Canteen [was informed by] the concept of creating a collage of unwanted items with a curatorial spirit,” Multitude of Sins founder Smita Thomas told Dezeen.
Multitude of Sins created booths out of mismatched objects
Visitors enter the restaurant through a bold scarlet door decorated with unwanted bicycle bells and humourous hand horns, which is accessed via a series of labyrinthine archways made from teal-hued scrap metal.
The archways are illuminated by alternative chandeliers composed of dismantled bicycle chains and old vehicle headlights.
Some of the restaurant tables are decorated with old CDs
Inside, the two-level dining area is made up of custom tables and seating that double as a set of striking installations.
Salvaged objects used to create these booths include abandoned sofas, obsolete bathroom ventilators and colourful coffee tables created from old oil barrels sliced in half and topped with glass surfaces.
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” acknowledged Thomas. “We have seen and felt this phrase come to life as we pieced together The Circus Canteen.”
The restaurant’s flooring is a jigsaw puzzle-style mosaic of sample tiles sourced from ceramics stores, while a kitchen serving hatch is framed by a colourful collection of outdated cassette tape boxes.
A serving hatch is framed by cassette tape boxes
Prompted by the desire to create an eatery interior with a minimal carbon footprint, Multitude of Sins’ project responds to many designers’ growing concerns about the wastefulness of their industry.
“The creation of each element – from custom lighting and flooring to art installations and furniture – was attributed to the mercy of the waste donation drive,” said Thomas.
“It reminds us of adapting skillfully, to reinvent with agility.”
The Circus Canteen intends to address wastefulness in the design industry
The Circus Canteen is part of Bangalore Creative Circus – a project formed by artists, scientists and other “changemakers” who host various community-focussed events in the Indian city.
Other eateries that feature reclaimed materials include a restaurant in Spain with elements made from upcycled junk and site construction waste and a cafe in Slovenia defined by recycled components that create a mix of patterns and textures.
Spotted: Moss is a highly efficient, natural air filter, attracting tiny dust particles to its fine, dense leaves. The plant biodegrades, stores, and eats airborne particles such as soot, ammonium salts, carbon dioxide, and pollen, all of which are harmful to human health. Moss also absorbs warm air, producing a local cooling effect as heat evaporates.
Greencity Solutions tested 16,000 species of moss to find the most effective ones for use in moss wall biofilters. Living walls are becoming more common architectural features, and with the new moss version, cities have an improved ability to bring the fresh smell and clean air of a forest to crowded, busy locations. After removing the pollution and decreasing the temperature of the air, the moss releases cleaned, cooled air. The effects can be measured up to one and a half metres away from the wall.
Greencity’s three solutions are the CityTree, CityBreeze, and WallBreeze. All three designs use internet of things (IoT) technology to track local conditions and footfall and are connected to a proprietary, cloud-based data platform that automates irrigation and tracks plant growth and health.
The CityTree is a freestanding pillar with a bench that cleans air from all angles. The pillar includes space for an LED screen or poster, allowing owners to customise and change messaging. The CityBreeze is a slimmer design created for high-traffic areas such as train platforms, shopping centres, and car parks. One side is a moss wall and one side is a 75-inch LED screen for high-resolution communication. The WallBreeze is fitted onto a wall, and up to 25 panels can be connected for management by a single account on the data platform.
Springwise has spotted a range of green wall innovations, with some more experimental and in early stages, such as 3D printing with soil, and others that are well-developed, policy-focused solutions seeking immediate, permanent change. That latter includes an organisation in Spain working with local governments to expand the numbers of green roofs.
After Seratech’s carbon-neutral cement won the 2022 Obel Award, Dezeen has rounded up six ways in which researchers are working to decarbonise concrete – the single most polluting building material in the world.
Currently, concrete’s key ingredient cement is responsible for around eight per cent of global emissions, surpassing all other materials except oil, gas and coal.
But as the world – and the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) – race to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change, a growing number of material innovations are emerging to tackle concrete’s carbon footprint.
Mostly, these focus on finding low-carbon substitutes for cement, making use of everything from algae-grown limestone to olivine – an abundant mineral that can absorb its own mass in carbon dioxide.
But none of these alternatives is currently available at the necessary scale to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century, according to Cambridge University engineering professor Julian Allwood.
“Despite the enormous range of innovations in cement that are being publicised, there are no substitutes with all the same performance characteristics and scale as Portland cement,” Allwood said in a speech at the Built Environment Summit.
To help buy the construction industry time to scale up viable alternatives, other researchers are looking at slashing the embodied carbon footprint of buildings by developing clever construction techniques to reduce the amount of concrete needed in their construction.
Below, we’ve rounded up six of the most innovative projects across both approaches:
Photo is by Helene Sandberg
Seratech by Sam Draper and Barney Shanks
London start-up Seratech has developed a way of creating carbon-neutral concrete, which involves replacing up to 40 per cent of its cement content with a type of silica made from captured industrial emissions and the carbon-absorbing mineral olivine.
All of the emissions associated with the remaining cement are offset by the CO2 that is sequestered by the silica, the company claims, which would make the material overall carbon neutral.
The cement substitute is both low-cost and easy to scale, Seratech says, because it can be integrated seamlessly into existing production processes and because olivine is an abundant material – unlike other cement substitutes like ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS).
Find out more about Seratech ›
Photo courtesy of Glenn Asakawa and the University of Colorado
Biogenic Limestone by Minus Materials
Taking a more experimental approach, researchers from the University of Colorado in Boulder have found a way to make cement using limestone that was grown by algae through photosynthesis, rather than limestone that was mined from the earth.
When this “biogenic limestone” is burned to make cement, it will only emit as much carbon as the microalgae drew down from the atmosphere during its growth, which researchers say makes the process carbon neutral.
If the ground limestone, which is typically added to the cement mixture as a filler, is also replaced with the algae-grown alternative the material could even be carbon negative, as the carbon stored in the aggregate would be sequestered instead of burned.
Supported by a $3.2 million (£2.7 million) grant from the US Department of Energy, the researchers are now working to scale up their manufacturing capabilities, while lowing the price of the material by also using the coccolithophores microalgae to make more expensive items like cosmetics, biofuels and food.
Find out more about Biogenic Limestone ›
Photo courtesy of ACORN
Concrete vaulted flooring by ACORN
As part of the ACORN project, researchers from the universities of Bath, Cambridge and Dundee have developed a thin-shell vaulted flooring system, which can be used to replace traditional solid floor slabs while using 75 per cent less concrete to carry the same load.
This resulted in an estimated 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions for the team’s first full-scale demo project, built inside Cambridge University’s Civil Engineering Department.
“Since concrete is the world’s most widely consumed material after water […] the easiest way for construction to begin its journey to net-zero is to use less concrete,” said ACORN principal investigator Paul Shepherd from Bath’s Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering.
Made using an automated manufacturing system and a six-axis robot, the flooring also functions completely without reinforcements, eliminating the need for emissions-intensive steel rebar.
Find out more about concrete vaulted floors ›
Photo courtesy of Carbicrete
Carbicrete by McGill University
Montreal-based Carbicrete is among a number of companies making use of waste slag from the steel industry to completely eliminate the need for cement in the concrete production process.
Instead of the water used in traditional concrete production, this cement substitute is then cured with captured CO2 from factory flues, which is sequestered in the material to make it carbon neutral.
However, this process can so far only be used to make precast panels and concrete masonry units. And due to the limited amount of steel slag produced every year – around 250 million tonnes compared to four billion tons of cement – Carbicrete could only be used to meet a fraction of the demand.
Find out more about Carbicrete ›
Photo courtesy of Newtab-22
Sea Stone by Newtab-22
On a smaller scale, London design studio Newtab-22 has developed a concrete-like material made using waste seashells from the food industry, which are ground up and combined with a patent-pending mix of natural binders such as agar.
Called Sea Stone, the resulting material looks strikingly similar to real concrete since the oyster and mussel shells it contains are made from calcium carbonate, otherwise known as limestone – a key ingredient in cement.
But as the material is not fired, it lacks the strength and durability of real concrete and is restricted to non-structural applications, including surfaces such as tabletop and tiles as well as plinths and vases.
Find out more about Sea Stone ›
Photo is by Patrick Bedarf
FoamWork by ETH Zurich
Another technique for using less concrete comes from researchers at ETH Zurich, who have developed a system of 3D-printed formwork elements. Made from recyclable mineral foam, these can be placed inside the moulds used to make pre-cast concrete panels, creating a pattern of hollow cells throughout the slab.
The formwork creates an internal geometry, which was optimised to reinforce the panel along its principal stress lines and provides the necessary strength to create everything from walls to entire roofs, while drastically reducing the amount of concrete needed in the process.
This creates panels that are lighter and use 70 per cent less material. And after curing, the mineral foam can either be left in place to provide insulation or endlessly recycled to create new formwork elements, which ETH Zurich says makes the process potentially zero waste.
Spotted: Jewellery is not often associated with waste – after all, the idea of leaving valuable gold or silver lying around the shop floor seems absurd. Yet, traditional jewellery making does involve a fair amount of scrap metal waste. This wasted material translates to the need for more mining, with its use of dangerous chemicals, and environmental and social issues.
Tallinn-based Cloud Factory has an answer not only to reducing jewellery-related waste, but also to cost-effective scalable jewellery production. Cloud Factory leverages 3D printing technology and recycled precious metals in the jewellery-making process. The startup is focusing on using its system to help musicians, brands, and celebrities create their own branded jewellery merchandise through a fully managed service that offers concept building, manufacturing, branded packaging, and drop-shipping.
The use of direct metal 3D printing minimises the production cost and time needed to produce quality jewellery at scale. However, not content with its current offering, Cloud Factory is also working to build fully automated on-demand 3D printing hubs at locations around the globe. The company is also launching its first jewellery NFTs to create a bridge between digital and tangible jewellery products.
The company has recently picked up €2 million in funding during a seed round led by Change Ventures, one of the leading early-stage funds in the Baltics.
3D printing is being applied to a growing range of products and structures. Some of the most innovative ideas that Springwise has spotted recently include creating living walls created by 3D printing with soil and a 3D-printed ear made from patients’ own cells.
After more than 4,000 votes, Dezeen readers have chosen projects by DP6 Architectuurstudio, FADAA and Kenoteq as the winners of this year’s Dezeen Awards public vote in the sustainability categories.
DP6 Architectuurstudio won for its pavilion made from locally sourced wood and recycled-steel joints in the Netherlands, FADAA for its store coated in grey lime plaster in Jordan and Kenoteq for its brick made from construction waste.
Of the total 55,000 votes that were cast and verified across all categories, the sustainability categories received over 4,000 verified votes.
Dezeen Awards 2022 public vote winners in the architecture, interiors and design categories were published earlier this week, the media winners will be revealed later today and the studio winners will be unveiled tomorrow.
Dezeen Awards winners announced in November
The public vote is separate from the main Dezeen Awards 2022 judging process, in which entries are scored by our distinguished panel of judges. We’ll be revealing the Dezeen Awards 2022 winners ahead of the winners’ party at the end of November.
To stay up to date with the latest Dezeen Awards news, including this year’s winners, subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Read on to see who was voted most popular in the sustainability categories:
The Natural Pavilion by DP6 Architectuurstudio
Sustainable building
The Natural Pavilion serves as a model to tackle construction challenges faced in the Netherlands, including sustainable energy production, housing shortages, biodiversity recovery and climate change adaptation.
The structure by DP6 Architectuurstudio, which features cross-laminated timber floors and recycled glass windows, was voted sustainable building of the year in the public vote with 29 per cent of votes.
In close pursuit was Mustardseed by Localworks with 25 per cent, Floating Office by Powerhouse Company with 23 per cent, The Exploded View Beyond Building by Biobased Creations with 12 per cent and finally Learning and Sports Centre by General Architecture Collaborative with 11 per cent.
D/O Aqaba by FADAA
Sustainable interior
D/O Aqaba won sustainable interior of the year with 26 per cent of the votes. The store by FADAA uses stacked bio-bricks made from crushed shells as partitions to protect from the sun and segment the space.
Next up was Apricity by Object Space Place with 23 per cent, Semba Good Ethical Office by Semba Corporation with 20 per cent, The Circus Canteen by Multitude of Sins with 19 per cent and MONC by Nina+Co with 13 per cent.
K-Briq by Kenoteq
Sustainable design
K-Briq was developed through academic circular economy research at Heriot Watt University in Scotland and won the sustainable design of the year category with 35 per cent of votes. Kenoteq’s design is made from construction waste and is coloured using recycled pigments.
The runners-up were Tidal Stool by Robotic Fabrication Lab HKU with 28 per cent, Remix by Open Funk with 18 per cent, Maggie’s Southampton by Local Works and Air-It-Yourself by Jihee Moon with seven per cent.
