Architect and TV presenter George Clarke has announced the winners of EcoFix, a design challenge by MOBIE (Ministry of Building Innovation and Education)
Clarke founded the education charity himself and created the EcoFix challenge in partnership with the architecture firm Grimshaw and construction company Mace.
The initiative invites young people to create new ways to reuse existing homes and buildings.
Young people from across the UK found energy-inefficient buildings in need of improvement and submitted retrofitting proposals for them. The proposals were encouraged to focus on reducing energy consumption and addressing the climate crisis.
Why innovative retrofit designs are so important
40% of carbon emissions come from the built environment, and around 27m UK homes must be retrofitted by 2050 to meet net-zero targets and combat climate change effectively. These figures emphasise the urgent need for new housing design ideas.
The winning designs included a terraced house conversion for disabled occupants, a mill building which could be repurposed as a family home, a historic hospital transformation into a community space for the elderly, and a Cold War aircraft hangar designed to be turned into apartments for young workers.
“The winners came up with inspirational designs. It is clear young people have great ideas about how to reuse old buildings and how we can reduce their environmental impact. The uses of technology to adapt buildings for a variety of users and to reduce their energy use were amazing and so imaginative,” said Clarke.
“It was hard for the judges to choose the winners. They were genuinely wowed by the standard of the work that these young people produced. The future of the built environment, and the planet, is in great hands with talent like this around – I can’t wait to see what they do next,” he added.
The EcoFix Challenge can have a lasting effect on sustainable construction
The judges stated that they were impressed by the creativity and imagination shown by the young participants in reimagining old buildings and reducing their environmental impact.
“The power of creativity and imagination to solve today’s complex and challenging issues, particularly climate change, needs to be embraced and it is fantastic to see our next generation of thinkers bringing this to bear through the EcoFix challenge,” said Andy Thomas, partner at Grimshaw.
“It’s important that the ideas entered as part of this MOBIE challenge have resonancere – they should inspire the design and construction industry to make deep and lasting change for a net zero, regenerative future,” he concluded.
