I know the pixels are just cooling on Tom’s last blog update but things are moving quickly now; the results are coming in thick and fast and, I kid you not, the rain clouds are moving in.
Yesterday in the blistering Madrid heat, five of the HOUSE’s finest assembled at the team tent for the daily award ceremony; the award being Sustainability. As usual, the awards began with an introduction by the judges, which explained how sustainability needed to be viable for the mass-market and be something people wanted to live in. Though this lifted our spirits, it has been a common observation by the judges, yet has frustratingly not translated into prizes.
Just to make things even more interesting we had a BBC film crew watching our every move, and as the judges made their commendations and our name did not come up I started to worry that their trip would have been in vain. As they moved to the main prizes, however, I started to wonder whether this time our message had made it across, and as they reached the second prize and began describing mass-marketability, closed loop food systems, affordability, and finally two stories, I realised that we were finally about to win something… and something important. Next thing I know, we’re lifting a trophy in front of cameras and the rest of the Decathletes!
Through the competition I had almost forgotten about sustainability; we had been sure of winning Market viability and hopeful of Architecture, but had forgotten that it was Sustainabillity that we were really here to win; after all, who needs to win Market Viability when we have a cheap house that everyone says they want to live in; who needs to win Architecture when the people that would live in it love the spaces. We were gradually becoming happy to just win the hearts of the public, but to be awarded this prize means a lot… and gives us another trophy to display alongside our Timber at Ecobuild Award!
Ben