Velux Award Winners Announced at WAF

The VELUX Group is proud to announce the two global winners of the International VELUX Award 2016 for Students of Architecture: Redistribution of Light by Kwang Hoon Lee, Hyuk Sung Kwon and Yu Min Park, Republic of Korea. This project was the winner in the Daylight in Buildings category and looked at the semi-underground spaces in Seoul city which emerged in the 1970s as air-raid shelters. As the population grew, the spaces transformed into illegal housing. They are characterised by small, eye-level windows that admit very little light. The project suggests how daylight to the interior spaces by day, and artificial light to the narrow roads by night, can both be amplified. The jury found this project highly viable. It presents a simple solution to a real challenge, making use of a very simple intervention of the cubic, sliding window prism. The project is beautifully illustrated and the presentation of the idea and the use of the sliding prism is convincing. Light for the Blind by Jiafeng Li, Chenlu Wang, Guiding Yao, Jiebei Yang, Lushan Ao, Xiaoqi Chen and Jiawen Li, China. This project was the winner in the Daylight Investigations category and looked at Synaesthesia – a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second. The idea of the project is to change the way people usually experience light – with their eyes – to ‘feeling’ it with their hands. It considers how blind people would be able to feel a world with light and enjoy the beauty of light and shadow, legible in surfaces as braille. The jury found this to be a very intelligent project in the way it develops its idea; from understanding that loss of sight increases the acuity of other senses, to the search for a material that responds to light by expanding and retracting. The proposal offers a clear idea that is beautifully presented. The International VELUX Award aims to inspire students of architecture to consider daylight as a principle source for the health, well-being and joy. The global winners were presented together with the overall winners in the professional architects’ categories at the World Architecture Festival’s (WAF) closing gala in Berlin on 18th November.

Image: Light for the Blind by Jiafeng Li, Chenlu Wang, Guiding Yao, Jiebei Yang, Lushan Ao, Xiaoqi Chen and Jiawen Li, China