by ArchitectureWeek
For its third annual steel housing competition, Living Steel challenged architects to design affordable, energy-efficient housing prototypes for Cherepovets, Russia, where temperatures can climb to 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and dive as low as -49 degrees Celsius (-56 degrees Fahrenheit) in the winter.
Peter Stutchbury Architecture of Sydney, Australia, won the top prize with its design for a wedge-shaped home built into the landscape. Two firms received honorable mentions in the 2008 International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing: Bligh Voller Nield, also of Australia, and RVTR of Toronto, Canada.
The Challenge
Sponsored by a consortium of steel companies, the competition called for innovative use of steel in the design of detached single-family houses of one or two stories, with usable floor areas of 120 to 150 square meters (1,300 to 1,600 square feet), including two or more bedrooms. The target construction cost per house was €80,000.
The program suggested that energy consumption be kept to under 100 kilowatt-hours per square meter per year. The architects were asked to design multiple housing styles based on a single construction technology, using a readily adaptable building methodology.
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