The MultiComfort House Students Contest was chaired by Pierre-André de Chalendar, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Saint-Gobain group, and Mr. Dawood AbdulRahman Al Hajiri, Director General of Dubai Municipality.

50 architecture and engineering student teams from 28 countries presented their projects in four pitch sessions to an international jury including representatives of the Dubai Municipality, architects and experts. The first prize was awarded to Vahin Parmananda and Mthokozisi Sibisi from University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

Vahin Parmananda and Mthokozisi Sibisi receiving their awards.

Marloes Reinink, one of the competition jurors and founding director of Solid Green Consulting, observed:

This competition is a great platform for students to be exposed to a real-life situation, where they get a chance to incorporate sustainable principles in their proposals. A great number of creative ideas were presented at the South African judging day, and both teams that went to Dubai to compete – from UJ and UKZN respectively – put forward well-considered designs. I was impressed by the students, who did a lot of investigation to create good architecture that integrated sustainability in their designs.”

For more information, please see the press release below or download it here.