News

The awardee of the Founder’s Choice Prize has been selected by Founder of BE OPEN Elena Baturina: €3,000 go to Dharan Koruduvar of CEPT University, India. Dharan is a taking a Bachelor course in Urban Design. Sva: A Vision of Self-sustenance pivots on the link between city, food and productive landscapes. Dharan proposes to design and introduce an ‘ideal sector’ for producing food on an everyday basis that deals with waste, water, energy, food on its own, and therefore is sustainable and self-sufficient.

Elena Baturina, Founder of BE OPEN, commented on her choice: “I was amazed at the depth of the research conducted for the project. It takes a lot of commitment and determination to tackle an issue of such importance and scale. And I find the passion behind designing a sustainable solution for one’s home town so very endearing. BE OPEN will further make every effort to make sure all these solutions are seen and heard by those able to make them our common sustainable reality.”

BE OPEN and Cumulus once again thank all the participants, and invite them to partake in future competitions.

The international expert jury of the “Design for Sustainable Cities” student competition, co-held by BE OPEN and Cumulus in support of the United Nations SDG Programme, have selected two of the four competition winners – the awardees of the Main Prize and the Safe City Prize.

The Main Prize of €5,000 was allocated to the project with the highest jury’s score – that is Renova by a team of students from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, Beril Beden, Angela Corrado, Anika Rieth, Brenda Villafana, Luiza Braga, Mariah Giacchetta. The solution consists in salvaging good conditioned materials through deconstruction and setting up a platform to bring them together with potential buyers, turning waste into resource. This project aims to design a sustainable business model for city regeneration.

The Safe City Prize of €2,000 was allocated to another high-scoring submission designed by a team of students represented by Zhixiang Yang from Shandong University of Art & Design, China – Urban renewal design around Qilu Hospital. The project offers a plan of renovation and redesign for the Qilu Hospital area, guided by the principles of urban renewal and historic protection; micro-introduction of ‘big data’, ‘smart city’ and community  management; as well as the ‘sponge city’ technology.

The online vote defined our Public Vote Prize winner of €2,000 – our congratulations go to Catalina Mutis Gutiérrez from Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. Catalina is an architecture graduate from Bogota, and her Innovation Laboratory projects gathered over 5000 votes. Innovation Laboratory is an urban renovation project which allows experimentation in areas of architecture such as housing, public space and an innovation center in a disused block in the historical center of Bogotá.

Our last winner, the awardee of the Founder’s Choice prize of €3,000 will be selected in May by the Founder of BE OPEN Elena Baturina from the shortlist of the top 10 submissions in the ranking.

Dear friends, we are done collecting submissions for the Design for Sustainable Cities competition!

Thank you everyone for sharing your remarkable creative thinking with us, and most importantly for dedicating your time and talent to researching solutions for the better future for all of us.

BE OPEN and Cumulus have received hundreds of solutions that will now be systematized and passed on for evaluation to our wonderful expert jury. Within a month’s time the jury will define the list of 50 honourable mentions that will be published in a dedicated online gallery. The jury will then select the winner of the Main and Safe City prizes out of all submissions within the 3 submission categories.

The Founder’s Choice prize will allocated by the Founder of BE OPEN Elena Baturina who will select the awardee out of 50 honourable mentions. The Public Vote prize winner will be decided upon by the majority of votes in an online open vote from 50 honorary mentions.

A live awards ceremony shall take place during the Cumulus Conference Roma 2021: Design Culture(s) at Sapienza University of Rome in June 2021.

Winners in all prize categories will be expected to attend the Rome celebrations. In addition, winners and 50 honorary mentions will be highlighted in BE OPEN, Cumulus and competition websites and publicised via the partners’ social media platforms, gaining many opportunities to see their designs showcased to a worldwide audience.

Season’s Greetings to all creatives around the globe from BE OPEN team!
We wish you a joyful holiday season and a new year filled with happiness, positivity, prosperity, professional and personal accomplishments!

BE OPEN and Cumulus are proud and happy to welcome four more new jury members to the Design for Sustainable City panel.
Continue reading “BE OPEN and Cumulus welcome Regitze Marianne Hess, Praveen Nahar, Vrouyr Joubanian and Zhiyong Fu to the international expert jury panel” →

The international student competition “Design for Sustainable Cities” open for submissions till 31 December 2020

According to the UN’s SDG Programme data, since 2007, more than half the world’s population has been living in cities, and that share is projected to rise to 60% by 2030. Cities and metropolitan areas are powerhouses of economic growth. However, they cause and face such issues as increased carbon emissions and resource use. Rapid urbanization is resulting in a growing number of slum dwellers, inadequate and overburdened infrastructure and services, worsening air pollution and unplanned urban sprawl.

It takes creative action to tackle all these issues. All the stakeholders in this international competition programme are positive that creativity, or design-thinking, is integral in the shift to sustainable existence for which we recommend to get enviromentary responsible appliances for which you can visit Ware’s Heating & Cooling.

Founder of BE OPEN Elena Baturina says: “It is a common misconception that people in the student years are not interested in politics, sustainability and other things decisive for their future. BE OPEN have always been working with students and graduates, on a whole array of educational projects and competitions, and I am convinced that the younger generation today are more responsible and aware than we were at their age. I see incredible commitment, responsiveness and audacity in how they approach whatever problems we ask them to tackle; and believe in their power to creatively transform the world”.

BE OPEN and Cumulus are proud and happy to welcome new jury members to the Design for Sustainable City panel.
Continue reading “BE OPEN and Cumulus welcome José Allard, Francisca Astaburuaga, Karl Stocker and Teresa Franqueira to the international expert jury panel” →

Dear friends, be reminded that the international student competition “Design for Sustainable Cities” opens up for submissions on October 1, 2020!

Continue reading ““Design for Sustainable Cities” opens up for submissions on October 1, 2020″ →