Dubai, 8 May 2019: In partnership with Dubai Municipality and Saint-Gobain, and in cooperation with the Environmental Center for Arab Towns (ECAT), Dubai city hosted the national stage competition for local universities participating in the 15th Saint-Gobain International Sustainable Urban Design Competition (Multi Comfort Student Contest), which comes this year under the urban development initiative of Crescenzago Metro Station Area of the Italian city of Milan, where the participants will need to develop a project to rejuvenate and make the urban reconnection of Crescenzago Metro Station Area in line with #milano vision.
This task was selected in close collaboration with Milan Municipality and aims to create a future vision and sustainable development for the area. The project will require the renovation of three existing buildings connected with a new mix-used development including residential.
Twenty-four teams representing three local universities took part in the local qualifiers for the Milan finals and the first team was selected to participate in the finals in June 2019.
It is worth noting that the international competition began in 2005 and participated annually by more than 2,000 university students of architecture and engineering in more than 30 countries, where the local qualifiers in each country qualify for the national contests to win competitions at the international level.
The contest mainly targets innovative designs that take into consideration the advanced engineering designs that are compatible with the green building standards, the efficiency of energy use, the quality of the internal air, the acceptable levels of sound, visual and thermal comfort and other main sustainable features interconnected seamlessly outstanding aesthetics of design and distribution of the positive external comfortable spaces for members of the community. It represents a real and innovative scientific challenge in the quality of design skills, which would add to the university students a high-level scientific experience.
As part of the celebration of the event at the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI), the competition featured 24 teams selected from three architectural universities in the UAE to present their designs for sustainable buildings. The projects were presented at an internal exhibition and were evaluated by a panel of sustainability and design experts and professionals according to transparent scientific criteria. The panel selected and honoured top three winning designs to participate in the finals hosted by the Italian city of Milan. Manipal University, Dubai won the first and second places while the Canadian University in Dubai won the third position.
Khalid Mohammed Badri, Director of ECAT, honored the winning teams with the participation of the Regional Director of Saint-Gobain, who was presented with a special commemorative plaque for the partnership in fostering the spirit of creativity, learning and sustainability among university students.
Saint-Gobain is a leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of materials and solutions that are essential components of environmentally friendly green designs, especially in the field of green buildings, transport, infrastructure and in many modern industrial applications, glass and all the requirements of energy conservation that provide comfort, performance and safety while facing the challenges of sustainable construction, resource efficiency and climate change.
