The contest aims to reveal the symbiosis between state of the art architectural design, space use, and technologies, in a highly sustainable manner.
The Teams have reflected over the future of housing and relevantly contributed to the cultural, spatial and socio-economic environment of their respective cities, regions and countries. The challenge? Designing, building and operating prototypes that correspond to the local, Hungarian building codes and construction requirements.
The buildings’ architectural qualities are assessed by the clarity of the concepts and design intentions, as well as the organisation of space in relation to the technology sustaining it; all of this with an eye for simple, yet radical proposals. The prototypes are evaluated based on their innovative concepts in relation to their local contexts. Fundamental criteria include:
Teams must include a summary of their urban design strategies and address local housing organisation issues narrowing down from urban to living unit scale. They present their holistic understanding of a sustainable built environment considering their construction systems, energy consumption, solid waste production and water use, among others.
It is vital to integrate natural and electric lights in a comfortable and efficient manner. The selection of materials will be assessed based on their durability, maintenance and Life-Cycle-Analysis - reusable or recyclable - and incorporation of energy and CO2 cycles. Teams describe the selected bioclimatic strategies (passive design strategies) by daylighting strategies, space planning and semi-passive conditioning systems (thermal energy storage, natural ventilation, shading, among others). Their exterior solutions have to improve the microclimate around the dwelling.
Aside from the characteristic features of the building visible from long distances, expect enthusiastic tours given by the Decathletes describing the ideas that shape the future of housing and architecture.
