THE UIA AWARD FOR INNOVATION IN ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION FOCUS ON UN SDGs, 2nd EDITION

The International Union of Architects (UIA) has concluded the second edition of the UIA Award for Innovation in Architectural Education, organised jointly by the UIA Architectural Education Commission and the UIA Sustainable Development Goals Commission. This edition of the award focused on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Key dates

2022-09-26 Award launch and announcement
2022-10-17 Deadline for receiving questions
2022-11-07 Questions made available on UIA website
2023-01-30 Submission deadline
2023-02-20 Jury meetings
2023-04-21 Announcement of results
2023-07-05 Awards Ceremony

Prizes

The jury awarded one prize (certificate): for one school/programme located within each of the five UIA Regions. The jury reserved the right to award Honorable Mentions or not to award all the prizes if the entries fell short of the required standards.

Keywords : Health, Sustainability

Theme and objectives

The Award was established in 2019 to celebrate the multifaceted nature of innovation across the boundaries of cultures and geographies. It also seeks to promote inspiring pedagogical practices that contribute to the creation of sustainable environments. Colleges, schools, departments or programmes of architecture worldwide are invited to submit academic programmes and courses demonstrating:

  • Excellence in Pedagogical Practice based on evidence of pedagogical innovation and enhanced learning outcomes
  • Excellence in Addressing Sustainable Development Goals based on evidence of innovation in content, identifying challenges and developing of solutions.

Eligibility

The Award addresses university level professional education in architecture or any study programme for professional architectural education worldwide, including university level independent schools/programmes or schools/programmes within public or private universities. The following conditions apply:

  • The school/programme must have been established for at least ten years.
  • The school/programme must offer a professional degree in architecture which is recognised by its local higher education authorities and/or local validation/accreditation body.

UNESCO-UIA validation is not a requirement for entry.

Jury Members

  • Martha Thorne (United States/Spain)
  • Howaida Al-Harithy (Lebanon/Saudi Arabia)
  • Michael J. Crosbie (United States)
  • Anupama Kundoo (India)
  • Hermie Delport (South Africa)

Alternate Jury Members:

  • Deniz Incedayi (Turkey)
  • Efthalia-Thaleia Grigoriadou (Greece)

Technical Committee:

  • Ashraf M. Salama (Egypt/United Kingdom), Award Curator

Observers (non-voting) technical committee members:

  • Marilys Nepomechie (USA), Iman Gawad (Egypt), Cid Blanco (Brazil)

Results

The Jury awarded 4 entries:

 

Region 1: Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (Sweden) – Emilio Brandao, Shea Hagy Marco Adelfio, and Liane Thuvander

Design Activism Beyond Sustainability – Architectural Education based on Collaborative and Radical Pedagogy

“The programme places emphasis on knowledge progression and skills application in a variety of relevant contexts through experience-based learning and the development of hyper-local solutions for real-world problems.”

 

Region 2: Department of Architecture, Gazi University, Ankara (Turkey) – Semra Arslan Selçuk, Esra Özkan Yazgan, Aysenur Coskun

Active Collaboration in Architectural Design Studio: Enhancing Knowledge Networks for Excellence in Pedagogical Practice

“Through a community service commitment, this is an impactful studio focusing on retrofitting and adaptive reuse as integral components of sustainability with interesting well-articulated cases addressing various scales of existing built environment stock.”

 

Region 4: Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing (China) – Mu Jun, Hao Shimeng, Jiang Wei, Zhou Tiegang, Jin Yibing, and Ren Zhongqi

Building with Earth: A Mutual-educational Approach towards Sustainable Rural Revitalization Empowered by Traditional Wisdom

“With a very sound pedagogical approach the programme engages with a variety of players coming from different backgrounds and disciplines to work directly with the villagers where everyone learns.”

 

Region 5: Architectural Engineering & Technology AET Programme, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Cairo (Egypt) – Heba Allah Essam E. Khalil

Sustainable Community Design and Social Development: Activating Spaces within Green and Healthy Corridors

“The studio work is tied to action research with a great variety of tools and techniques that include assessment, gaming, negotiation, observations, and communication. Students look for unused opportunities in their city in which to intervene, such as vacant land and medians.”

 

The jury further identified 1 entry to be commended for its inspiring proposal that successfully considers the relationship between the natural and the built environment with equality embedded as a key design parameter, and awarded an Honourable Mention to:

 

Region 4: Department of Architecture, School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin (China) – Kong Yuhang, Yang Wei, Zhang Xinnan, Xin Shanchao, Song Yilin, Yang Hongwei, Guo Mengdi, and Zhang Yifan

Designing with Nature and Equality

“The fact that this programme is over a decade old speaks to how much of an influence it has had on shaping a sustainable future. Heavily anchored in scientific research the international component of the programme makes its impact global, as does the interdisciplinary approach.”

 

The award-winning projects will be exhibited at the UIA Education Commission Exhibition during the 28th UIA World Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark.