WHAT WAS IT ABOUT?
The CLEAR Village Visualisation Contest, open to applicants from all over the world – professionals, students, and art-enthusiasts alike – was designed to invite people to express their visions of an ideal sustainable village: a place where you would want to live, study, work and experience the challenges and rewards of an ecologically durable lifestyle. In other words: to define the future of living and what the CLEAR Village Foundation could set out to do.
WHAT WAS THE BRIEF?
Entrants were invited to draw, sketch, take photographs, paint, use digital design tools to create images, or even submit poetry.
Key words were:
Collaborative, participatory, connected, global, vernacular, secular, inclusive, multi-generational, multi-functional, adaptive, evolutive, holistic, systemic, community, self-sufficient, sustainable, aspirational, future, masterplan, rural, reboot, low-tech, hi-tech.
WHAT WAS THE CONTEST FOR?
The contest fits into the CLEAR Village Foundation’s initiative is to build a real-life eco-village somewhere in Europe within the next 5-10 years, as it is our firm belief that we cannot start to plan a village without first knowing what we want. This competition was an attempt to envision our deepest desires for sustainable living.
We received many fantastic entries from people everywhere and from many walks of life! They were all inspiring and enlightening, but the jury had to choose just one winner and two runners up!
WHO WERE THE JUDGES?
Jill Fehrenbacher, Founder of Inhabitat,
Antoni Vives, Catalonia Journalist, essay writer and Politician
David Rowan, Editor of Wired UK
Thomas U. Ermacora, Founder of CLEAR Village Foundation
Paul Hughes, Strategic Partner at Lava Graphic Studios
WHO WON?
WINNER: Healing Strip by Firus Faizal
Located in the real physical space with a lot of research behind it, this entry has beautiful visuals. The concept of the Healing Strip is rich in innovative ideas and leads to very interesting thought processes. The link between architectural design and building efficiency with organic design and attention to surfaces and the use of light highlights a mature concept that seems persuasively scientific. Appealing due to its regenerative and evolutive nature, it combines energy and landscaping in a complex tapestry. The only negative point would be that it begs the question ‘how does this connect with a village setting?’
1st Runner Up: UV21 by Rommel Paulo A. Roque & Steven Velegrinis
Practical, realistic idea for a true urban eco-village. It actually inspires us to live there and has a great combination of advanced technology and human scale environment. Probably the strongest idea is modularity and flexibility that allows for partial or complete integration into an urban or rural landscape. It is probably a stronger project that visualization but the way it condenses a credible way to change real estate developments is attractive and although it talks less of people, it seems like an environment that would be friendly and conducive to good community dynamics.
2nd Runner Up: FLOATING VILLAGE by En-ling Lu & Huang-an Chen
Although our focus is more rural and peri-urban areas, many coastal cities and environments will be hit by rising sea-levels and we may have to build off-shore communities in an organic, self-sufficient, tightly-knit architecturally sound way. The aesthetic of the entry is not extremely appealing but is has a bit of a science fiction tone to it which reflects the idea of a healthy and enjoyable future which is also something we want to communicate, i.e. that a sustainable tomorrow involves people in fun and pleasure more than a grim, post-apocalyptic lifestyle. On top of that it is imaginative and low impact and gives an alternative to developers wanting to do unsound projects such as the World which is now sinking.
PRIZES
First Prize: 2500€
Two Runners Up: 1250€ each
Winners names will be published in CLEAR Village publications and the winning entries will be showcased there.
TERMS & CONDITIONS
By submitting a design in the competition, the participant agrees to provide the CLEAR Village with the right of first refusal to the exclusive use of the design. In the event that CLEAR Village exercises the option to use the rights for production on an exclusive basis and without time limitations, CLEAR Village undertakes to pay a one-off fee to the designer, and, by participating in the competition, all participants authorise CLEAR Village to publish and exhibit all the designs (including project data submitted) – waiving compensation – at exhibitions and events and/or to use them in any publications that the organisers may deem suitable and/or necessary. The CLEAR Village Visual competition is an international design competition hosted and organised by the CLEAR Village Foundation, which is a non-profit organisation registered in the Netherlands.
