Morphosis Wins Zumtobel Group Award

Los Angeles, July 6, 2007– On June 28th, the Zumtobel Group announced the winners of the first international Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment. Designed to commend outstanding sustainable and humanitarian solutions in contemporary architecture and engineering, the award carries a purse of EUR 140,000, shared among two categories: Built Environment and Research & Initiative.

For the Built Environment, the jury honored Morphosis for the United States Federal Building in San Francisco. The Research & Initiative award went to Schlaich Bergermann Solar, Stuttgart, Germany, for the design of the Solar Updraft Tower.

The two winning projects were selected from a worldwide total of 40, proposed by a global network of experts in architecture and engineering. Determining the laureates in the two categories was the task of an independent, interdisciplinary and international 9-person jury comprising leading architects and engineers, a philosopher, the Executive Director of UN Habitat and the CEO of the Zumtobel Group. As they assessed the nominations, the jury applied wide-ranging criteria from the fields of sustainability and humanity, from environmental and aesthetic quality to high ethical, social and economic standards.

 The jury selected Morphosis’s recently completed office building for the United States General Services Administation for its innovative and integrative combination of leadingedge sustainable technology with intelligent design strategies to create an architectural landmark of outstanding aesthetic quality. In the words of the jury: "Through its leadership in sustainable thinking, this building sends out a strong signal and message in the urban context, not only in the US, but all over the world.”