Organized to advocate the adaptive reuse of industrial heritage sites for urban integration, the international final was hosted at a former cement factory located on the banks of the Sava River. Participating architecture students were tasked with redesigning the waterfront industrial area housing the Belgrade Academic Yachting Club into a sustainable all-season sports and recreation hub.
Held in collaboration with the World Green Buildings Council, One Click LCA, the City of Belgrade, and the Serbia Green Building Council, the evaluation matrices prioritized circular economy design methods, embodied carbon reduction workflows, operational energy efficiency, and low-environmental-impact material configurations.
Global Rankings and Academic Representation
Following detailed evaluations by the international grand jury, the winning architectural concepts were announced as follows:
First Prize: The "Ceding the Sava" project by the South African team,
Second Prize: The "COEXISTENCE" project by the Portuguese team,
Third Prize: The "The Bird's Nest" project by the French team,
Student Special Prize: The "Meandering Confluence" project by the Chinese team.
Representing Turkey at the international finals, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University students Nurcan Açıcada, Oğul Can Aydın, and Eda Nur Çolak, under the guidance of their advisor Ekrem Bahadır Çalışkan, presented their structural re-functionalization design to the international jury.
Organized annually since 2004 for undergraduate and graduate students, the contest leverages Saint-Gobain’s 360-year innovation heritage to foster carbon-neutral building design architectures and resilient urban habitats worldwide.
