Zerofootprint, a climate change awareness organization, and its partner the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto, announced that it is now welcoming nominations for the 2011 Zerofootprint Re-Skinning Awards. This annual competition celebrates the year’s most successful, holistic building retrofitting projects from around the world.
The Zerofootprint Re-Skinning Awards invites the best minds in architecture, design, building, and engineering to submit green building projects that demonstrate the innovative use of energy retrofitting technologies. Retrofitting and re-skinning involve the use of design solutions to dramatically reduce the environmental footprint of older, energy-inefficient buildings. This competition seeks to recognize the year’s most progressive retrofitting projects that are making our cities more sustainable.
With outdated insulation, heating, and cooling systems, most buildings are inefficient by today’s green standards. In Toronto, office buildings, shopping centres, and urban dwellings account for 63 per cent of the city’s emissions, and in other major cities worldwide buildings account for 60 per cent to 80 per cent of emissions: 60 per cent in London, 72 per cent in Hong Kong, and a massive 79 per cent in New York. These numbers make it clear that solutions for climate change must include improvements to the aging, infrastructure in our cities.
“The Re-Skinning Awards address the challenge of buildings in our cities, the largest contributors to urban greenhouse gas emissions, head on,” says Dr. Ron Dembo, founder and CEO of Zerofootprint. “The awards honour the forward-thinking designers, engineers, developers and building owners who are reducing our cities’ carbon footprint, one building at a time.”
New this year is a partnership with the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto that will build on the success of the Awards’ inaugural year in 2010, where winners were announced at the United Nations World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro.
“The Daniels Faculty is delighted to partner with Zerofootprint for the Re-Skinning awards, as it’s a great fit with our multi-disciplinary approach,” says dean Richard Sommer. “The most important design challenges we face today escape the exclusive purview of any one discipline or professional expertise. Successful re-skinning projects are the result of inspired teams modeling new practices in the field.”
A panel of global experts in architecture, engineering, sustainability, and design will judge the entries. A number of world-renowned green leaders and innovators will also serve as advisors. Winning entries will be selected based on eight criteria, including resource and operational efficiency, aesthetics, reproducibility, the use of information technology to make the buildings “smart,” and the social benefits accrued from the retrofit.
The deadline for submissions is August 31, 2011. For more information about the 2011 Zerofootprint Foundation Re-Skinning Awards, including detailed entry criteria, visit: http://www.zerofootprintprize.com
A book of the 2010 Re-Skinnning Awards finalists and winners is also now available on the Zerofootprint website.