The Active House Award 2018 competition knows the winners

The VELUX company announced the winners of the international student architecture competition Active House Award 2018. A total of 78 students from five universities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia submitted their designs on the theme Future living. The awards ceremony took place on December 10, 2018, at Impact Hub Brno.

Architecture students presented a new perspective on the architecture of the future in their designs for the Active House Award 2018. The challenge was to create a building concept for residential use that provides innovative solutions to this issue and operates in accordance with the principles of an active house. The submitted designs were evaluated by a three-member expert jury consisting of Zuzana Morávková (ERA 21 magazine), Ján Stempel (Stempel & Tesař architects, FA ČVUT educator), and Klára Bukolská (VELUX Czech Republic). The jury assessed not only the quality of the architectural and urban design but also the students' work with natural light, sufficient fresh air supply, energy management, and overall environmental impact. Five submitted works received awards — three designs ranked third, one took second place, and one work received a special jury award.

“The Active House Award competition annually provides university students the opportunity to think about designs for buildings of various focuses. This year's edition confirmed that housing is one of the most challenging disciplines in architecture. Combining a new vision, a new architectural principle with a person's notion of comfort, views, privacy, and economic consideration is no small task. We saw a range of interesting ideas about how housing development could look — without burdening urban, environmental, or cultural concerns,” said Klára Bukolská, chief architect of VELUX Czech Republic.

Students from the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava took home the most awards. Place third were Lucia Blahová and Andrej Vojtko, while Lucia Hrdlovičová took second place. The jury award also went to Slovakia, awarded to Martin Horvát along with Matúš Hornyák from the Technical University in Košice. Among Czech students, the most successful was Pavel Juříček from the Faculty of Architecture of the Brno University of Technology, who received the award for third place. A total of €3800 in prizes were distributed among the competitors.

Evaluation of the expert jury of Active House Award 2018

2nd place – Lucia Hrdlovičová
The project utilizes the traditional structure of a village, respecting the basic forms and layout of rural houses. The concept is applicable for both infilling existing construction and for supplementing with entirely new structures. It works naturally with the basic principles of natural lighting and ventilation. The layouts are functional. The project does not introduce any fundamentally new ideas but works with existing, proven principles.

3rd place – Lucie Blahová (SK)
The project deals with the immortal theme of housing estates, its densification, and humanization. The use of containers in some modular system corresponds to the logic of housing estates, but the layout solutions, especially regarding the connection of individual floors by stairs, are problematic.

3rd place – Andrej Vojtko (SK)
The jury appreciates the complexity of addressing the issues, but the final solution is unnecessarily complicated and expensive, as the ratio of living space to the overall glazed area is inadequate and does not provide the desired comfort.

3rd place – Pavel Juříček (CZ)
The idea of “co-housing” in row housing represents one of the possible variants of future forms of living. The proposed solution draws on traditional forms, which may be too formal. The open staircase in the atrium also appears to be problematic.

Jury Award – Martin Horvát, Matúš Hornyák (SK)
The jury appreciates the consideration of the principle of transferring natural light into the internal layouts of any building. The author reflects on the availability/unavailability of natural light within existing structures.

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