City as Living Factory of Ecology, winning entry by ARUP, Sauerbruch Hutton, Experientia and Galley Eco Capital.

In my opinion, the best sustainable projects have been in small scales. Urban scale projects have been more difficult to get going, due to the their inherent complexity.
But I am confident that recent initiatives are about to make the step forward, specially the ones that are being produced on countries that have the have their governments focused on this.

On of this examples is the recently awarded Low2No design competition, organized by Sitra (Finnish Innovation Fund) and the City of Helsinki, to find a on design a large building complex on a reclaimed harbour at the western edge of Helsinki’s central business district.

Given that the repertoire of sustainable urban development models is still in its infancy, the question of “who & how” is our question of first order. WHO: We believe that identifying the best team and approach is the key factor impacting the robustness of the final solution. HOW: Our competition is designed to seek approaches for four central objectives applied at the scale of a city block:

1. low- and one day no- carbon emissions
2. energy efficiency
3. high architectural, spatial and social value
4. sustainable materials and methods

The finalists included top practices and consultants such as ARUP, Sauerbrunch  Hutton, Space Syntax, Transsolar, ARO, REX, Front, BIG, among others.  The award went to C_Life by ARUP, Sauerbruch Hutton, Experientia and Galley Eco Capital.

Videos and boards for the winning and finalists entries  after the break.