Hannover, Germany, January 25, 2006--The major prizes of contractworld award 2006 were presented to participants from South Korea, Spain, Austria and Germany on Saturday, 14 January, during a special ceremony held in Hannover.
The high quality of the work submitted reflects the prestige enjoyed by this leading international award for interior design. The keen interest shown internationally was demonstrated by the fact that projects were submitted from no fewer than thirteen countries. 'We had a large number of outstanding entries', said jury chairman, Prof. Werner Sobek, 'and many of them displayed a masterly use of materials, lighting and spatial design. There were also some excellent ideas for conserving energy.'
This is the sixth successive year in which Deutsche Messe AG has awarded Europe's top architecture prize for interior design. With prize money totalling 50,000 euros, it is Europe's most richly endowed prize award for innovative interior design concepts. Awards were presented to a total of fourteen participants, including two special awards. In addition to the three traditional categories 'Offices', 'Hotels' and 'Shops' a fourth category was introduced this year, with the idea of choosing a different theme each year to reflect our changing concerns and preoccupations. This year's theme was 'Health & Care,' which proved extremely popular with potential entrants. There were 39 entries in this category alone, more than half of them from outside Germany. How important the contractworld.award is for architects and interior designers can be seen from the overall number of entries received. This year's competition attracted 243 project submissions (entries by category: 'Offices' 68 entries, 'Hotels' 30 entries, 'Shops' 106 entries and 'Health & Care' 39 entries).
The prize-winning projects in the category 'Health & Care' focussed on a broad variety of issues, which is to be expected in an area of such diversity and topicality. One of the projects to receive a first prize was the ELS colors kindergarten near Barcelona designed by the Spanish architect's office RCR Aranda Pigem Vialta Arquitectes.
In the suburbs of Barcelona the architects have created a colourful building with semi-transparent walls of red, orange and yellow, thus affording a cheerful and imaginative environment where children can play and develop. Second prize in this category also went to Spain and was awarded to Bernalte--Leon Estudio de Arquitectura for the interesting Thermal Centre in Ciudad.
Another prize-winning entry was the residential property of a married couple in Rhenen, Netherlands. The brief of the architect's bureau Paul de Ruiter b.v. was to realize a comfortable and practical open-plan home that would provide suitable accommodation for a couple in their later years. The architects came up with a modern building, centred around a swimming pool, that serves as an area of health and relaxation and is a lovely source of light for the adjoining rooms. The jurors awarded this original concept third prize in the 'Health & Care' category. All award-winning projects will be featured in a high-quality booklet to be published in late March.
The jury was chaired by Prof. Werner Sobek. The other architectural design professionals on the judging panel were Prof. Daniel Kündig from Zurich, Jürgen Mayer H. from Berlin, Prof. Wilhelm Meyer from Hannover and Prof. Roger Riewe from Graz. Representing manufacturing industry on the jury were Heinrich Hagemann, head of mMarketing communication at Philips, a global player in the lighting sector, and Leo Lübke, managing cirector of seating manufacturer COR.
